


Only Blood Will Satisfy

by Paraxdisepink



Category: due South
Genre: F/M, First Time, M/M, Vampires, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-19
Updated: 2013-03-19
Packaged: 2017-12-05 19:34:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 50,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/727121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paraxdisepink/pseuds/Paraxdisepink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Victoria is once again out for revenge. This time it’s Ray K who suffers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The world spun like one of those tea cup rides on drugs, and Ray’s head swam so fast he could have sworn he was under water, the dance floor rolling back and forth before his eyes. The flashing lights were killing him, red and blue and frantic like something out of a nuclear disaster movie, and the noise . . . He could feel pressure building in his skull from the floor-shaking beat of the music. Forget trying to see straight; by now the people squished in freaking everywhere looked like nothing more than blurry dark spots blotting out some of the light, packed together so close someone should have busted out the yellow tape to give a guy room to move.  
   
He’d decided to park it at the bar. Walking straight had become out of the question a couple shots ago and with the cash burning a hole in his pocket Ray knew he’d only end up coming back for more and he was already tired of pushing his way through little knots of people wrapping themselves around each other like a couple of snakes. But maybe the cash had nothing to do with the shots. Maybe it was his mood that had him going toe-to-toe with the tequila until it hit him like a big fat kick to the head, the kind he could have given Fraser right about now. Fraser. Tequila. Two things that didn’t belong in the same sentence. One shot and a guy like Fraser would probably get up on a table and tear that stupid uniform off, assuming he didn’t fall on his freak Mountie face first, and the idea of Fraser dancing on a table was so funny Ray laughed out loud. It was a hell of a lot funnier than the way Fraser got his pumpkin pants in a tangle just thinking of places like this, which he did every single freaking time Ray brought up going out in conversation.  
   
“Liquor and blaring music really aren’t a constructive way to spend an evening, Ray,” Fraser had told him this time, all stuffed-shirt and pissy and rain-on-your-parade like Ray had said _hey why don’t we toilet paper some houses and maybe put food coloring in the neighbor’s swimming pool._ And then it had gotten worse when Fraser’s eyes had kind of narrowed. “And as you should know by now I’m not all that enticed by the sight of young ladies wearing about as little as they can get away with. Apparently there are men who are, so I suppose there’s no dissuading you from going.”   
   
So Fraser didn’t do the club thing. All right. Ray could have guessed that. He didn’t drink and he didn’t box, and maybe that Queen the RCMP had such a hard-on for ordered all her little boys and girls to tuck in by 9pm. Did that mean Fraser had to give him that look like something smelled bad and pretty much call him a sleaze? They’d stood there outside the Consulate arguing about it for a while, with Ray getting louder and louder trying to explain horniness and normal male urges until he’d finally given up and driven off. It wasn’t until he started drinking that he realized how much Fraser had gotten under his skin. What, was Fraser trying to imply that he was some kind of low-life, or maybe in his polite Mountie way trying to tell him where he could and could not go? That sucked. That sucked big-time. Everything Fraser had said earlier had sucked. _Insensitive._ How was saying that he wanted to meet someone insensitive? It wasn’t like Fraser had lost his dick in a bear trap. Why should Fraser care if he wanted to go out and got laid?  
   
Ray had come here every Thursday night for the past month, even though he was maybe five or ten years too old for this kind of scene – what with the junkies and the sleezeballs and the kids with fake ID – but he couldn’t hang with the stuffy places meant for people his age, not right now, and he didn’t have the kind of cash for posh dinner clubs besides – well not unless there was a hot chick involved, which he could do with right about now. Tequila always made him horny. Okay, he’d been horny before he started on the shots, and that was the problem really. Fraser couldn’t understand that. When Fraser got antsy, they went camping in the park, because open space was better than sex for Mounties apparently or maybe Fraser just hated his dick. Guys like him always did – a dick just didn’t want to be polite stuffed in a uniform all the damn time. Dicks were honest, and not Canadian do-no-wrong honest either, more like punch you in face honest. And maybe he should quit drinking because he was getting philosophical. Screw that, when Ray got antsy, he wanted to get laid, because he was a normal red-blooded guy, and Fraser had to go and frown on that sort of thing instead of just accepting their differences, which in this case were bullshit in the first place. Ray wanted to kick something just thinking about it.    
   
He knew one thing, next time Fraser felt smothered, Ray wasn’t going anywhere with him until he knocked back at least two shots and got up on the freaking table and maybe unbuttoned that uniform, lived a little and accepted the fact that it wasn’t a crime to get horny.   
   
“Something funny?” Ray hadn’t realized he was laughing again, but a voice like shiny silver reached above the music, the kind you got for wedding gifts or anniversary gifts or something, the ones Stella had thrown out a long time ago. But Ray wasn’t here to wallow about that anymore. He was done with Stella and whatever new guy she had now. He turned, and found this dark haired woman standing beside him, her white halter dress so skimpy he could almost see through it as the flashing lights changed it from blue to red to green. Ray tried not to stare, tried to ignore the little twinge in his boxers as he looked her over. She was tall, with curves like a freaking hourglass, that dress so tight across her hips she had to have painted it on, dipping low enough in front to promise real fun times if he got it off her. Oh yeah. He could roll with that. Her curly hair spilled everywhere around her shoulders, and she had these big blue eyes like some kind of sex goddess from a porn magazine and this white, white skin that made Ray a little bit hard thinking about rubbing himself all over her. .  
   
“Buy you a drink?” The words just flew out. Tequila and slick talk didn’t mix, and he’d always had a bad habit of coming on too strong, but hot as this woman was, Ray was just glad he didn’t start drooling.  
   
She smiled, and it was like the lights around her dimmed. She goddamn _sparkled,_ and when she nodded and said, “Sure,” Ray thought he would pass out from sheer happiness. His luck with women was _never_ this good.   
   
He waved the bartender over and shelled out fourteen bucks for two martinis – highway robbery in a dump like this, but who cared. His new friend pulled her stool real close and pressed her thigh to his, and all Ray could think about was maybe sliding a hand up her skirt and seeing if she was as hot under there as she looked. She seemed to read his mind, crossing her legs and letting the white material of her dress ride up, smiling at him over the rim of her glass, and hell yeah would he get between her legs right there on the bar if she let him. Hell, he’d go down on her right there on the floor if she let him.   
   
“So what’s your name?” Ray told his dick to shut up before she saw his hard-on through his jeans. He didn’t want her thinking he was some desperate, newly-divorced, hadn’t-been-laid-in-awhile, well . . . _him._ That turned women off like a fucking lightswitch, like nobody wanted to be the rebound girl, or when they found out one of their own had booted him they figured it was a hint for the rest of them to stay clear.  
   
She tossed her hair back over her shoulder and glanced around like she didn’t want anyone to overhear. Secretive, Ray liked that. He could do secretive. “Tori,” she told him, taking another sip of her drink, “from Austin.”  
   
Austin? Ray blinked. Her accent didn’t sound very Southern. But at that moment Ray could have cared less if she said she came from Pluto; Tori put a hand on his knee and leaned closer, practically yelling over the music.  
   
“Can we go outside? It’s hot in here.”  
   
Ray nodded, this little hopeful happy dance going on in his pants. She threw her head back and downed her drink in one swallow, her hand still on his leg, and Ray chugged his own just as fast, the extra alcohol hitting him like a tidal wave crashing through his head. He wondered what the hurry was, but it wasn’t like he was going to complain if some hot woman wanted to be alone with him, so once Tori slammed her glass down on the bar, he hopped from the stool and took her by the hand, pulling her through the crowd. He flashed a grin at the guys with their tongues hanging out when she passed, suddenly glad Fraser wasn’t here so she couldn’t leave with him instead. Women always went for the quiet, good-looking one. Not that you could blame a woman for falling all over Fraser. Most guys were jackasses who couldn’t keep their hands to themselves.  
   
The fresh air outside hit him like a slap in the face, a typical cold October night. Ray felt a little more alert away from the stifling heat of the club, but he still stumbled on his way down the steps, Casanova that he was, and instead of letting go of his hand so he couldn’t take her down with him, Tori just held onto him and laughed.  
   
“A little too much to drink,” he grinned at her over his shoulder, aware that he was slurring. “I’m a cop. I should give myself a DUI later.”  
   
She squeezed his hand and laughed again, before he could tell her he was only kidding about the driving thing, even though his car sat in the parking lot across the street. “I’ll put you in a cab . . .” she promised with this naughty little smile like she had a secret, a real naughty secret, “after I’m done with you.”  
   
After she was done with him . . . He almost giggled under his breath. His groin was throbbing with the music now and when she walked a little ways ahead of him he could definitely see through her dress in the street light and it didn’t look like she had anything underneath it. He probably should have offered her his leather jacket – her hand felt awfully cold in his – but at that moment he didn’t think he had the coordination to walk and take it off. Besides, by the way she was talking, he planned to have her plenty hot in a few minutes. Maybe he sucked at the whole husband thing, but he never failed at getting Stella hot.  
   
She led him into an alley in back of the club, empty except for the broken bottles and trash on the ground. Ray could still hear the music, but he was too hammered to distinguish it from the thud of his pulse and the impatient pounding in his dick. The streetlight hardly reached here, and when Tori pushed him back against the building, Ray could only barely make out her dark hair and white skin. She still glowed without the disco lights, and he smiled down at her stupidly, realizing he hadn’t given her a name.  
   
“Ray,” he slurred at her. “Ray Vecchio, in case you’re, you know, kinda wondering.”  
   
She tossed her hair again, tilting her face up. “Ray Vecchio?” The name hit her happy buttons or something. She let out a laugh that sounded like a fountain splashing, and that laugh made Ray a little bit harder, like he could feel the soft rush of her breath across his cheek on his dick instead. Her hand came up, tracing one side of his face with the backs of her knuckles, and he shivered. It felt so fucking good to have someone touch him again. “You’ve gotten sexier,” she purred at him, “your nose is smaller and I like the hair.” Her fingers moved up through the spikes he had gelled fresh just a few hours ago and for a bare moment all he could think was _heh she likes my hair!_ before the other stuff registered.  
   
Shit. Ray’s mind went blank, too drunk for this. This woman knew the real Vecchio, knew he _wasn’t_ the real Vecchio, and that was heat he couldn’t handle right then. He opened his mouth to make some stupid crack about there being more than one Ray Vecchio in the world, but she cupped his jaw and before he knew it Tori was kissing him with her mouth open.  
   
That mouth was hot and cold at the same time. Ray tasted gin on her tongue and it only doubled his alcohol buzz. He got his arms around her back and her skin was icy, even when he tried to rub some heat into her, her tongue inside him and his cock jumping when her breasts pressed tight against his chest. That was greatness, always was.   
   
She slid her thigh between his legs up against his crotch, like she needed to feel how hard he was for her as she kissed him, which was plenty hard, _almost too_ hard. His hand moved up to clutch a handful of her dark hair and just like that she slid down, her bare knees bumping on the pavement.  
   
Ray leaned his head back against the cold brick, his breathing ragged now. Oh yeah, Oh yeah. He knew where this was going and his whole body buzzed with anticipation. She watched him as she unzipped his jeans, those blue eyes locking right on his neck. Weird, but he didn’t care. He could see all the way down the front of her dress when she leaned forward and when her fingers went the whole distance over the length of him Ray shut his eyes and let out a strangled sound.  
   
Tori didn’t waste any time; she took him into the heat of her mouth and ran her tongue across the head of his cock like she was thirsty for the little wet drops leaking out of him, and then she wrapped her lips tight and started sliding her head forward and back. Jesus. Ray grabbed two fistfuls of her hair, pushing forward with his hips and fighting with himself all the while not to be too rough. He wanted more and he wanted _now,_ but he didn’t want to hurt her.  
   
When he came it was like she was sucking the life out of him. His knees went wobbly and his brain felt like it was rapidly deflating inside his skull. He did his best to help her to her feet afterward, but at that moment she was stronger than him and pulled herself up like it was nothing. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and then she was kissing him again before he really had time to catch his breath, letting him taste himself, salty and hot.  
   
His hand trailed down her back, over her ass, and then up beneath her dress. And maybe his eyes weren’t so bad, because she really wasn’t wearing anything under there, just soft skin and wetness, and when he slid a finger into her she groaned against his mouth.  
   
Ray let his head fall back with the feel of her, tight and slick. He’d missed that – someone else’s heat, someone wanting him. He imagined lifting her up against the building and pushing into her, imagined feeling her legs shake against him and her breasts bouncing against his chest. He let out a groan of his own, letting his thumb slide up to her clit, throbbing and swollen like he had been a moment ago. She definitely liked the way he stroked her, rocking her body into his hand and digging her fingers into his shoulders.  
   
Her mouth fell to his neck, her breath fanning over his skin, coming fast now. She flicked her tongue out, right over the spot where his pulse beat almost as rapidly, and then she opened her mouth.  
   
Ray let out a sharp breath as the wet ring of her lips closed over his skin. Then it was her teeth, cold and stinging like the edge of a knife, only a sweet little thrill shot straight to his cock and his thumb stroked her clit a little harder. A little biting, yeah; bring it on. She started to shake, and her teeth pressed down, and then his whole neck was in pain.  
   
Wetness. Ray felt goddamn wetness leaking down his neck. She’d broken the skin and it burned so bad his eyes watered. He realized he’d had one hand in her hair all this time and tried to push her back, tried to demand what the hell freak thing she thought she was doing, but she started to suck on the wound she’d made, and suddenly she felt two hundred pounds heavier than him and the grip on his shoulders felt like iron.  
   
He made a weak sound and his hand fell from between her legs, and he would have slumped to the concrete if she weren’t holding him up. The woman was crazy. He could hear loud sucking sounds and the wet noises of her tongue lapping up the blood and the beat of his pulse a hundred times louder than before, loud enough to break his skull open almost. She yanked her mouth back and pushed their lips together, her hands tightening when Ray tried to squirm away, and suddenly Ray felt more like he was trapped under a car or a house than pinned to a wall by another human being. There was just no getting free of her, her or her mouth. He tasted the blood on her lips and at first he wanted to be sick, shouting stuff that just got muffled, but then she forced her tongue inside and that was all wet and metallic tasting like she’d bitten it, and the taste was all he could think about because he started sucking on her tongue, drinking it down. And weirdly, Ray felt the blood rushing to his groin again, getting him so hard he could hardly breathe.   
   
Somehow, he had his strength back, this whole surge of strength he hadn’t had before, and she was turning them around, her mouth back on his neck. She wrapped one leg around his hip and he lifted her up on instinct, pushing her dress out of the way and fumbling in his pocket for a condom. He practically growled when he finally shoved himself into her, pinning her between himself and the building.  
   
She let out these hungry sounds against his skin as he started thrusting as deep as he could get, and all of a sudden everything was greatness and he forgot all about Stella and Fraser. Something started to happen. He felt her pulse where her body squeezed at him and his pulse where she sucked at his neck, and before he knew it they were pounding in the same rhythm and he was coming and she was coming, sucking on him hard.  
   
He couldn’t stand at all when it was over. Tori climbed down and Ray slid to the ground, resting back against the wall and slapping both hands against the dirty concrete to keep from falling over. His neck burned and he felt dizzy – not just drunk dizzy or post-orgasm dizzy, but weak. Blood was still running down his skin and his vision was going black around the edges. He head footsteps and realized Tori was hurrying away. _So much for that fucking cab . . ._ That was Ray’s last thought before his body slid down against the building behind him and he passed out cold.  
   
**  
   
The nights were growing chillier, though of course they were warm compared to the Territories. Diefenbaker seemed to behave as though they were in the middle of a blizzard, however, curled under a blanket at the foot of Fraser’s cot. But he had grown noticeably soft since coming to Chicago, obviously unconcerned with the fact that his packmates would laugh at him if they could see him now.  
   
Outside, a siren blared, an ambulance at full speed, and the sound set Fraser’s teeth on edge.   
   
After more than two years, he still wondered how the city’s inhabitants could sleep undisturbed with all the noise – the neverending rush of traffic, the nightly road construction, and of course the sirens roaring roughly every ten minutes, trumpeting Chicago’s staggering crime rate. He could distinguish them from one another now – police, fire, ambulance – and naturally the police were always the busiest. Fraser missed the silence up home, the nights broken only by the calls of wolves or birds, and he missed the comfort of vast open space and most of all the smell. The air coming through the open window carried a tarrish, chemical scent that more often than not irritated his nose. The North smelled clean, crisp, and sometimes Fraser felt suffocated by so many people and so many walls with no room to breathe.  
   
Yet he remained. He remained for reasons that had changed over the years, reasons that left him restless tonight. He had tried telling himself it was the lack of exercise keeping him awake, that perhaps he simply wasn’t tired after long stationary hours of “playing statue” as Ray called it and more behind his desk, but he knew better than to blame his listlessness on his duty and decided that going out for a walk would be fruitless.  
   
A noise echoed outside in the hall and Diefenbaker lifted his head from the blanket. Fraser sat up as well in the darkness with an exasperated sigh, sure the noise was nothing more than Turnbull wreaking havoc in the kitchen. But what had first sounded like a faint footfall quickly escalated to the pounding of boots on the carpet.   
   
The pounding on his door came a moment later, half-frantic, followed by that familiar voice. “Fraser, come on. Wake up. Somethin’s happened.”  
   
Ray. Fraser climbed from the bed at once, his mind turning over the dozens of worrisome scenarios that would bring Ray here at this hour – approximately  3:30 a.m. by the angle of the moon. He no longer bothered wondering how Ray had managed to get inside the Consulate at all – at the moment he did not especially care. After the fury in which Ray had sped off earlier, he was simply glad to hear from him at all, though of course he had not appreciated Ray’s colorfully-worded lecture on the proper function of the male organ as though he didn’t know all too well.  
   
His partner stood pale in the dim light of the hall when Fraser opened the door, and right away he saw the dark stain where Ray pressed a hand to one side of his neck. Blood. Ray’s blood. Fraser flicked on the office light immediately.  
   
“Ray . . .”  
   
Ray stumbled inside, reeking of liquor and taking his hand away from his neck. The skin was marked with two deep red gashes as though some sort of animal had bitten him, a stream of still-wet blood running all the way down to the collar of his pale blue t-shirt. He was visibly weak; bracing himself with a hand on the desk and breathing hard, smearing blood onto the wood from his fingers.  
   
Fraser closed the door.  
   
“Ray? Ray, what happened? Ray . . .?” He turned just in time to catch him as he staggered backward, wrapping both arms around Ray’s narrow body to hold him up in case his knees gave way. He was cold, Fraser could feel it through his t-shirt, and nearly dead weight where he sagged against Fraser’s chest, his heart beating fast. “Easy, Ray.” Fraser did his best to steady him. “Why aren’t you at the hospital?”  
   
Ray stiffened, making an effort to turn in Fraser’s arms. He ended up slapping a hand to Fraser’s hip for balance and careening into him, their noses bumping, so close Fraser could smell both the liquor and the blood from the brilliant stain on his neck, metallic sweetness and pungent sour mixing together. The scent was . . . distressing.   
   
“I hate hospitals,” Ray bit the words out through clenched teeth, his eyes glowing as though there were torches behind them. Very blue torches. But for all the apparent fierceness there, the rest of him looked alarmingly haggard.  
   
Fraser briefly considered letting him pass out and calling for an ambulance, but first he knew Ray had to lie down. He guided him over to his cot with an arm around his shoulders and a hand on his chest to keep him from toppling forward, keenly aware of Ray’s weight against his side and the heat of his labored breath against one side of his face. There was sweat on his skin, soaking the back of his t-shirt, his cheek pressed so tight to Fraser’s he thought Ray’s head would drop onto his shoulder at any moment. Fraser was reluctant to let go of him.  
   
“Fuck, it hurts,” Ray hissed as he sank down onto the mattress, rubbing the wound on his neck with the back of his hand and smearing more blood onto his knuckles. He was so weak Fraser had to lift his legs to help him stretch out, and when Ray’s lean body was spread out safely on his back in no danger of falling and incurring further injury, Fraser went to his desk and opened a drawer.  
   
“It was a woman, Fraser,” Ray explained at last from behind him, then some of the sharpness from earlier this evening crept back into his voice. “Look, don’t say it. I don’t wanna hear it. We were having sex outside this club and . . . and it’s like she got so into it she just tore into my neck like I was some kind of chicken wing. She ran, and I – I passed out. Came here.”  
   
“I see.” Fraser didn’t know what Ray would have him refrain from saying, or what more there was to say, since Ray had made himself more than clear on the matter earlier. All the same, Fraser was relieved his back was turned, fishing for the homemade ointment, cotton swabs, and clean gauze he always kept on hand. So Ray had indeed gone out, then? Something inside him sank in disappointment, disappointment he quickly pushed away. He could not help that it bothered him to imagine Ray drunk in some wild venue only half aware of his surroundings, seeking intimacy with a stranger he knew nothing about, and he certainly couldn’t help expressing those sentiments as he had this evening, but he supposed they would have to call a truce on the subject for now. Ray needed help.  
   
“This woman . . .” Fraser lowered himself to the cot and pushed a wad of gauze into the gashes on Ray’s neck, holding it there with his fingers. The skin had evidently been tore into with some force, narrowly missing the jugular. He frowned. “Was she a . . .?”   
   
“A hooker?” Ray finished for him, in what Fraser recognized as a wounded tone. His face twisted as Fraser increased the pressure on the gauze and his eyelids fluttered as he sucked in air through his teeth. “Look, Fraser, I’m not that desperate, okay? I told you. I get lonely. I met her at the bar and she was drop dead _beautiful_ with this dark hair and this white skin and . . . “ He licked his lips, realizing that he was talking too fast. “She said her name was Tori, and Fraser she started sucking me off like . . .”  
   
“I wasn’t requiring you explain yourself.” Fraser interjected in a tighter voice than he meant to. Ray certainly had the right to accept female attention, and he had defended the practice of becoming drunk out of his senses often enough for Fraser to know there was no detouring him from doing it from time to time, whatever his feelings, but Ray could exercise the decency of sparing him the lurid details. “I was thinking more along the lines of possible disease. You say you passed out. Did she take anything from you? Money or -”  
   
Ray drew in another sharp breath and turned his head away. The bite obviously stung, even with the alcohol in his bloodstream to dull the pain. “Fraser, I don’t know right now, okay? I just . . .” He squeezed his eyes shut, sweat shining on his face now, and when he opened them again they were almost like glass, reflecting the light above him. Then again, his eyes had always been striking, burning with anger and wild energy. “I just . . .” His hand lifted as if to rub at his neck again, but he let it fall with a sigh. “I just feel all wrong, you know?”  
   
“Well, you’re drunk, Ray.”  
   
“I know that, Fraser.” Those eyes flashed, a warning not to push him, that he had had enough when Fraser had tried to discourage him earlier. “I puked twice on the way here. The whole thing just . . . I’m a little freaked out right now. You get that, Fraser?”  
   
“Indeed.” Fraser took the gauze away, wet and red and wanting to stick to Ray’s skin. He was confronted with the image of Ray in one of those dark crowded clubs his doings in Chicago had brought him to once or twice, the strobe lights turning Ray’s blond hair red and green by turns, his body pressed to some woman’s on the crowded dance floor, hot with arousal. The image frustrated him, and Fraser pushed it away, blinking to find Ray peering up at him from the pillow, his expression . . . fraught.  
   
“What, you think I’m some kinda man slut who can’t keep it in his pants? I got needs, Fraser, all right? I get lonely, stressed-out . . .”  
   
“I understand.” Fraser took another piece of gauze and rose to wet it from the bottle of water sitting on his desk, and while his back was turned he thought he heard Ray mutter, “No you don’t.”  
   
Ray lay still as Fraser sat down to wipe the blood away, dragging the damp gauze as gently as he could across the smooth skin and the tender cuts. He couldn’t help but notice that the wound wasn’t flushed or inflamed as it should have been; Ray’s skin was almost luminous, and even his hair seemed to gleam like gold, more so than before.  
   
“That feels good,” Ray murmured, a slight catch in his voice as though surprised. Fraser inclined his head and cleaned the last of the blood away just under the collar of Ray’s shirt, watching the bright scarlet turn to a wet pink mess on the gauze. He supposed the cool water would stop the sting, but he tried to focus on the dangers of the bite instead.  
   
“You really should see a doctor, Ray. Off the top of my head alone I can think of at least ten serious diseases potentially transmittable through a bite like this.” Fraser certainly hoped Ray had taken the appropriate precautions in his . . . relations with this woman, but he supposed having done so would do him little good now, considering.  
   
Ray shook his head against the pillow, and Fraser could only imagine the strong scent of his hair gel he would leave there. He shook his head as well, reaching for the concoction he had used on Ray months ago when he had run to him shaken and bleeding after Volpe had been shot in that alley. Ray, it seemed, would do well to keep out of alleys.  
   
“Yeah?” The word came in a tired challenge as Fraser began dabbing the mixture onto the wound. He had to lean close to do it, sinking down onto his knees, his face a mere few inches from Ray’s on account of the dim light. He felt Ray’s eyes, the initial panic gone, and he smelled the liquor almost intoxicatingly strong. Ray’s mouth curved into a little smile as though the idea of Fraser intoxicated amused him, and Ray’s eyes caught his for a brief moment before they slid down to where Fraser’s head was turned in order to see better, fixing there as though fascinated by the pulse at his neck. Odd, very odd. “I got a Mountie with that pregnant Walrus juice,” Ray went on softly after a moment. He could be surprisingly soft-spoken when he wished. “I don’t need a doctor.”  
   
Fraser felt the blush come up from his neck and he swallowed down a strange knot of emotion. He and Ray had come a long way, it seemed. There had been a time when his methods would have been met with mistrust and disparaging remarks.   
   
“You don’t look well.” Fraser set the jar and the cotton swab aside to rest the back of his hand against Ray’s forehead. He was pale and alarmingly cold to the touch, bloodless and strangely incandescent, though of course Ray had always possessed a radiant quality.  
   
“Nah, Fraser,” Ray shook his head once more, his hair tickling the back of Fraser’s hand as he did so. He appeared relaxed lying there, or perhaps groggy with so much liquor in him – there were after all the beginnings of circles beneath his eyes. “Maybe if I had something to eat?”   
   
“There’s always the kitchen.” Fraser laid a clean square of gauze across the twin wounds and secured it with white tape. He had to help Ray up from the cot with an arm around his back when he finished, Ray’s balance still compromised as they ventured the first few steps. He nearly stumbled on the carpet, slapping a hand to Fraser’s chest before he lost his footing.  
   
Fraser halted, his heart beating suddenly faster as though the idea of Ray falling were more frightening than it should have been. Ray turned, ready to shake the blunder off with a bashful laugh, but Fraser knew Ray felt the pounding under his hand and Fraser certainly felt the pressure of Ray’s fingers through his shirt. Ray’s eyes seemed . . . pained was the word . . . as they flicked up to Fraser’s face, and taking it for embarrassment at his rather inelegant state, Fraser dropped his gaze and steered them through the door.   
   
Turnbull was still in the kitchen, that ridiculous white apron tied over his uniform – which he should have long since removed by this hour. His hands were covered in mitts and he was busy lifting bread out of the oven, having permeated the room with the thick smell of garlic. Fraser tried to keep a lid on his exasperation that the man was there at all.   
   
“Turnbull, what are you doing? It’s three in the morning for God’s sake.”  
   
Turnbull set the baking sheet on the counter and removed his mitts. “Baking, Constable,” he said as though that were not plainly evident by the flour and yeast lying about. Then he leaned forward and whispered, “It’s customary to bake bread early in the morning, and today it’s garlic bread.” He lifted up one of the cloves from the cutting board.  
   
Ray’s fingers clenched in Fraser’s long johns, and all at once he doubled over in a fit of coughing. “What’s that . . . what the hell is that smell.” He could hardly get the words out, covering his mouth and nose with his hand. “You’re killing me here.”  
   
Fraser patted his back, helping him straighten with his free hand and watching his face in concern. Ray’s features were twisted. “I wasn’t aware you had a garlic allergy, Ray.”  
   
Ray rubbed a hand over his face and tried to steady himself with a deep breath. “I don’t. It’s just . . . the smell.” He ducked out of Fraser’s hold and darted out into the hall, leaning against the doorframe.  
   
Fraser exchanged a look with Turnbull, but the younger man only frowned down at his bread as if pondering what had gone wrong with it. Then his face lit up like a mad grandmother determined to stop an infant from wailing. “Perhaps the detective would prefer a burger and fries. I seized upon a deep fryer this morning, and –“  
   
“Burger and fries are good,” Ray called from the hall, mercifully cutting him off. “And I want that done up bloody and rare, Turnbull. You got that?”  
   
Turnbull looked puzzled, as did Fraser. “That’s hardly advisable, Ray,” he said over his shoulder. Surely Ray knew the heath risks; he usually ordered his meat well done.  
   
“I don’t care. That’s how I want it.”  
   
Fraser shared another bewildered glance with Turnbull, but the man only began blithering about the seasonings in the fries, at which point Fraser promptly exited the kitchen. Ray was in no condition to drive himself home considering the amount of alcohol in his blood, and that meant Fraser would have to make accommodations for him.  
   
Ray opted to eat in Fraser’s office, claiming the garlic smell made him nauseas. He took the burger in both hands, hunched forward over the desk, and ate the bloody meat with a ravenousness that reminded Fraser of Dief in the days when he had actually hunted instead of eating donuts and chili dogs. Fraser stood with his arms behind his back, watching. Ray even licked the juice from the bun and his color soon returned to normal. Odd, to say the least, and yet Fraser could not help wondering if his hunger for the nearly raw meat matched his appetite for flesh earlier. An inappropriate thought, certainly. He felt color washing up from his neck again.  
   
“What?” Ray looked up from the plate, sliding his long fingers into his mouth and sucking the juice from them. Fraser promptly looked away.  
   
“I . . . Nothing.”  
   
“Nothing,” Ray grumbled, tearing off another mouthful of rare meat. The fries, he ignored entirely.  
   
Fraser let him climb onto his cot when he finished. There was, after all, nowhere else to put him since Inspector Thatcher would hardly be pleased to see him camped out in the hall. For his part, Fraser intended to take his bedroll and make himself at home on the floor, but Ray forestalled him by inching over to the far edge of the bed and patting the spot next to him. “Come on, I’m skinny. It’s only for a couple hours.”  
   
It was indeed, and Fraser sympathized with Ray’s desire not to inconvenience him – he was in point of fact the same way – so he gave in and slid reluctantly under the covers and did his best to keep to his side of the narrow bed, aware of Ray’s warmth and the liquor scent heavy on him still. It was distracting, and Fraser thought only to lie in the dark for another two hours before the alarm went off, but eventually sleep got the better of him. He dreamed even, of the sweltering Chicago summer and of the Sears Tower on fire, and somewhere in the middle of it he thought he felt warmth pressing against his back and something soft tracing faintly over the pulse at his wrist.  
   
**  
   
Fraser had the early shift outside the Consulate that morning, and thus did not conduct himself to the precinct until after lunch. He had left Ray sound asleep in his office, curled on his side in his corner of the cot, surprised that he intended to go into work at all what with the headache sure to follow when he woke and the wound on his neck that would bear explaining. But then again Ray had incurred stranger wounds in the line of duty and would be no doubt all too proud to boast to anyone who would listen that he had “gotten some” last night, as he put it.  
   
That sort of boasting was unchivalrous in Fraser’s book, despite Ray’s claims that women discussed anything and everything with their companions to the extent that would make a grown man blush. Regardless, Ray had grown testier and testier on the subject of his love life of late, perhaps due to the fact that Stella had a new beau, or perhaps . . . Fraser halted the thought. Often times when Ray returned to the station bragging to his brother officers that this woman or that woman had “checked him out,” Fraser found himself tuning out the conversation. It was illogical, of course, but his heart sank every time to hear that ultimately Ray found his company inadequate and searched for more, and that their late-night meals and camping in the park would only last until he found it.   
   
Fraser’s mouth thinned in a frown. Perhaps it was a mark of his deprived life that he had learned to be content with what he had. Ray would say as much. But in this strange city it seemed as though Ray was all he had, so energetic and passionate and loyal that Fraser doubted he had room inside for anyone else.  
   
A strange funereal silence hung over the squad room when Fraser entered with Dief, broken only by Francesca taking a phone call in a whisper, her face blank with quiet shock. That in itself alarmed him; Francesca was many things, but seldom quiet. The atmosphere brought to mind the tension hanging over this place after Louis Gardino had been killed in that car bomb meant for Ray – Ray Vecchio – and immediately Fraser scanned the room to see who was not where they should be.  
   
He sighed inwardly in relief to find Huey at his desk rifling through papers, and Dewey bent over his own paperwork rubbing at his right eye. Neither of them spoke, and when Fraser glanced across the room he saw that Ray’s chair was empty.  
   
Dread crept up instantly, in the form of a cold knot in the pit of Fraser’s stomach, and he no longer feared that a friend had been harmed in the line of duty, but rather that this Ray had been exchanged for yet another Vecchio. That would be more than Fraser could bear at present. Of course, Ray’s prized GTO sat right outside in the parking lot, but that had hardly mattered the last time. He exchanged a look with Dief, who yipped and bounded over to Ray’s desk.  
   
“Constable . . .” Fraser’s fears mounted when the voice of Lieutenant Welsh echoed from behind him, hushed and decidedly troubled. When Fraser turned he thought the older man looked hung out to dry, frustrated and exhausted, and as usual short on time. “A word with you.”  
   
Fraser nodded, numbly following Welsh to the squad room’s supply closet that had shielded more than one private conversation, mentally preparing himself for grim news. He closed the door and reached up to turn the light on, though he hardly needed it or another look at Welsh’s face to see that something was dreadfully wrong.  
   
The lieutenant drew in a deep breath, and Fraser very nearly held his own.  
   
“There’s been an incident.” Welsh pitched his voice low so as to not be overheard, and Fraser went still, well aware of what “incident” could mean. “Assistant State’s Attorney Kowalski was shot last night outside her apartment building. Brother found her in the parking lot, says she lost a lot of blood. She’s in a coma. The folks at the hospital don’t think she’ll make it.”  
   
Fraser exhaled in relief – relief that nothing terrible had happened to Ray – but he became instantly ashamed of himself and let the Lieutenant’s words sink in. Stella. He went cold, at a loss for how to respond. This was . . . hardly what he had expected to hear, but it chilled him nonetheless to think of anyone gunning down a tiny woman – any woman – and leaving her for dead in a pool of her own blood. The viciousness with which crimes were carried out in this city never ceased to shock him.   
   
Of course, this was slightly more personal, Stella being Ray’s ex-wife, and therefore all the more shocking, and following that thought Fraser reluctantly realized that in Ray’s eyes he might as well have been the one shot. The shame of a moment ago deepened, sure his initial relief would have disgusted Ray had he seen it.   
   
Fraser rubbed his brow lips and looked to Welsh again.  
   
“How is Ray taking this, if I may ask, sir?” He supposed someone had driven Ray to the hospital, where he would naturally want to be. Stella was his whole world, and Fraser had forced himself to accept that given the choice Ray would have long since abandoned him in an instant to share his meals and his couch with her instead. He swallowed down another surge of guilt; it was revolting to think of Stella as any sort of rival at a time like this. The woman had been shot, for God’s sake.  
   
The Lieutenant’s bark of a laugh had a hollow ring to it, confirming all Fraser needed to know. Ray had taken this about as well as expected. “See for yourself, Constable. I sent him outside to cool off.”  
   
“I see.” Fraser itched to go after him, but it was evident from Welsh’s face there was more to tell, and so reluctantly he cast his mind back from Ray to Stella. “Assistant State’s Attorney Kowalski’s life was threatened before. Are these incidents related perhaps?” Somehow, Fraser doubted it. Stella’s work no doubt made her plenty of enemies, and there was always the possibility . . .  
   
Fraser’s heart sank when Lieutenant Welsh scratched his head, his expression turning even grimmer. More than a possibility, then. “That’s the problem, Constable. Brother’s saying Kowalski did it, jealous over some new guy she’s seeing around town.”  
   
“That’s impossible, sir,” Fraser couldn’t keep the anger from his voice, nor did he try. The jealousy, he could accept, but the accusation that Ray would . . . “Ray’s not capable of –“  
   
“Save it, Constable,” Welsh cut him off sternly, holding up a finger. He knew – knew Ray. He had certainly demonstrated faith in him in the past, a fact Fraser took great comfort in now. “Look,” Welsh let his hand fall, “I got Internal Affairs coming in here in a few minutes so I gotta run. We’ve got some time, so get Vecchio out of here before he gets brought up on some real charges. He’s already given Detective Dewey a black eye, and letting IA get a hold of him now wouldn’t be pretty. Anything he’s got to prove he wasn’t anywhere near Ms. Kowalski last night – an alibi, a witness. Get it out of him, because otherwise we’re looking at a full criminal investigation here, Constable.”  
   
“Understood, sir,” Fraser nodded miserably. He had helped clear Ray of a serious charge before, but the situation now felt nothing short of nightmarish. The brother had to have evidence of some sort of Ray’s involvement in order to have worried Welsh in the first place, otherwise Ray’s easily verifiable story about the club and the Consulate last night would surely have cleared him of suspicion. Ray only needed to point to the mark on his neck to prove that he had been attacked himself, unless he had withheld that information for a reason, in which case it would behoove Fraser to get Ray to talk just as Welsh had said.  
   
He found Ray at his desk when he emerged, and the sight was heartbreaking. Ray was slumped over, his face buried in his folded arms, oblivious to Dief at his side and Francesca hovering behind him with a Styrofoam cup in her hand. She watched him nervously, and after a long moment shook her head, laying a hand on his shoulder and setting the cup down in front of him.  
   
“Thought coffee might help,” she said in a tired voice.   
   
Fraser tried not to grind his teeth. Coffee was the last thing Ray needed at present. He needed . . . Fraser shook his head sadly. By the looks of things, he needed a lawyer.  
   
He hardly expected Ray to hear Francesca, deep in his anguish as he was, but all at once he snapped upright, took the cup and flung it at the wall, splashing the want adds and bulletins pinned there with dark brown liquid.   
   
“Fuckin –“  
   
He turned, realizing that it was Francesca behind him, opening his mouth to say something and then closing it abruptly. She held her wrist as though Ray had burned it, but quickly set about straightening the crucifix at her neck in an effort to compose herself.   
   
“It’s just me, Ray.” She snapped at him, though it was evident he had frightened her. Fraser could scarcely blame her. Ray’s outbursts were all too familiar, but this time his movements had been lightning swift, almost too swift to see.   
   
Ray continued to stare at her, only to abruptly slap a hand over his eyes as if assailed by sudden pain – from the hangover, no doubt. Francesca sighed, looking to Fraser for help before she turned and made her way back to her desk without the usual attempt to fondle his arm.  
   
Ray watched her go, only to turn and stare at the wall as if seeing the dark stain there for the first time. He shook his head and sagged against his chair with a heavy sigh, covering his face with his hands.  
   
“I can’t do this,” he muttered between his fingers. He was still pale, though not in an ailing fashion; his skin had taken on an almost marble-like quality, the gauze at his neck hidden by a black turtleneck sweater, the sort he would otherwise not be caught dead in. Again, Fraser wondered what he had told or not told Lieutenant Welsh of last night, and if his worry for Stella had not blinded him to the necessity of defending his own innocence. Shamefully enough, Fraser wanted to gnash his teeth that Stella still meant that much to him.   
   
“Ray . . .” Fraser approached him tentatively, understanding that interruptions were not precisely welcome in times like these, the hollow pity, the obligatory . . . “Ray . . .?” He did not dare touch him, only leaned over the desk. “I’ve heard the news, Ray. This isn’t the place for you right now. Come on.”  
   
Ray’s hands came away from his face and he snapped upright, flipping through the pages on his desk as if determined to appear hard at work, and apart from being wound up with obvious rage there was a starved look about him. “Can’t do that, Fraser,” he shook his head. “Gotta find out who did this. Asshole’s going down. That’s all that matters.”  
   
Fraser bowed his head under the weight of empathy he wished he did not have to feel. Ray’s anger and single-minded determination were all too familiar to him. When the news had come that Bob Fraser had been shot, Fraser had scarcely allowed himself a moment to process the shock and grief. There had only been the drive for justice, justice, justice, and of course revenge. It hurt all the more to see Ray endure the same now; there was nothing worse than seeing one you loved suffer as you’d suffered.  
   
“I wasn’t suggesting you do otherwise, Ray,” Fraser told him gently. “Only that perhaps you do it elsewhere, and allow me to help. When my father was –“  
   
He had no need to finish. Ray looked up, his usually almost pretty face etched with weariness, and there was a moment of gratitude and – perhaps on account of that weariness – giving in when he might have argued otherwise. Fraser was glad for it – that Ray didn’t send him away – well aware of how powerless and overwhelmed he must have felt at that moment, the ridiculous accusations aside. There was simply no need for Ray to endure it alone.  
   
“Yeah, okay.” Ray stood up, collecting his papers and his jacket from his desk, and then to Fraser’s surprise, he drew the car keys from the pocket of his jeans and dropped them into his hand.


	2. Chapter 2

Ray didn’t feel like talking on the drive home. He just slumped against the car door like some kind of slinky and stared blankly through the window at buildings he’d seen hundreds of times and people he didn’t give a shit about and . . . and trees. Who the hell stared at trees? But if he didn’t concentrate on something he’d just close his eyes and see Stella lying in a hospital bed hooked up to three dozen machines, and his hand would curl into a fist with the urge to smash something.  
   
He’d already tried the dashboard, but Fraser had just reached over and grabbed his hand, asking him in that patient Mountie voice to “please refrain from hurting yourself, Ray,” giving him the sad look like Ray might as well have slammed Fraser’s fist into the dash instead. Fraser had held onto his hand for a moment longer and that had helped; the pulse from his fingers beat in this perfectly steady rhythm and it was like Ray’s own pulse had slowed down to match it. That was good. That had cleared his head, for a little while. He needed his head clear to figure out what sick fuck had gone after Stella, and if they had beef with him why they couldn’t go after him directly. Nothing worse than a coward. And Fraser had picked the wrong moment to let go and grip the wheel again, because Ray’s hand clenched right back into a fist and all of a sudden it was either break something or scream.  
   
He felt sick on top of everything, on edge like his skin was trying to crawl away from him, and starved . . . like he needed something bad but didn’t know what. He’d woken up that way, in Fraser’s chincy little cot with the blankets tucked so neat under his chin his mother must have been there, or some kind of Army Sergeant. Or Fraser. Turnbull must have done some Mountie magic on that burger too, because instead of waking up feeling like someone was beating his skull in with a hammer, there’d been no pain, no hangover, just that . . . craving. It wasn’t a normal food craving either; he’d eaten breakfast and he’d eaten lunch an hour ago just before they got the call, lucky he didn’t puke his guts out all over the place.  
   
Sitting in the car made it worse. Every so often he’d catch a glimpse of Fraser’s sleeve out of the corner of his eye and the blood red color of that stupid coat would set his skin crawling all over again like something was trying to get underneath it or out of it, and things were so quiet Ray couldn’t help but hear Fraser’s heart beating loud as a freaking drum, or he thought he could, and by now he had to be completely unhinged because the sound drove him crazy.  
   
The gauze on his neck itched, but he tried not to think about it. He didn’t care about the stupid bite or the club right now, or why he had gone there in the first place or what he’d been trying to prove, but . . . He’d peeled off a corner of the tape this morning to see what kind of crazy mess that woman had made of his neck, and the mark had just . . . vanished. No bruise, no puncture wound. Nada. He started to think he had dreamed the whole thing – the sex, Fraser’s bed, all of it. But he’d kept the gauze there because he couldn’t deal with magic disappearing marks on his neck and he didn’t want to have to ask how that could have happened and hear it from Fraser about risky behavior and drinking and how you never knew what kind of shit a total stranger had.  
   
Ray sagged further against the car door. Right now he absolutely did not need to hear it from Fraser. He would snap the minute he heard it from Fraser.  
   
“We could go to the hospital if you’d rather, Ray,” Fraser finally broke the silence, and Ray felt bad for what he’d been thinking a second ago. The guy was only trying to help, and when Fraser helped he didn’t just nail the whole case by licking something small and retarded like a crumb off the floor, he sat down and listened to you, made you feel less like shit and more like you really were good enough. Ray could have reached out and hugged him for it some days if it wouldn’t have freaked the both of them out.  
   
But Fraser hadn’t taken his eyes from the road even though it was going to be a while before the light changed. His face was tight and Ray could see he didn’t want to go to the hospital. Maybe Fraser was too polite to say it, but he didn’t like Stella, and Ray couldn’t help that it pissed him off the way Fraser kept pretending otherwise like he wouldn’t notice. How hard was it to come out and say how you felt?  
   
“Come on, Fraser. You and I both know she don’t want me there.”  
   
It hurt to admit it, to face the truth, but Fraser knew almost everything else about him and Ray didn’t have the energy to lie to himself right now. It fucking killed though him to sit there feeling like some kind of failure for not being there to protect Stella last night when he knew damn well that it just didn’t cross her mind anymore that he was supposed to be there when she needed him. But either way he was going to make it up to her. He was going to find the guy.  
   
Fraser couldn’t seem to look at him, staring at the traffic light like it was some kind of rare musk ox he meant to hunt or something, and Ray went back to staring out the window at a couple of high school kids laughing together at the bus stop, wishing he could throw something at them to make them shut up. Fraser didn’t say anything until they got going again.  
   
“I realize she divorced you, Ray, but that doesn’t rule out the possibility of her taking comfort in your presence. That is to say, there’s a prevailing belief that people in comas can –“  
   
“Fraser –“ Ray wasn’t in the mood to be pushed. He just didn’t do the hospital thing, and even if Stella wanted him there and wouldn’t slip deeper into her coma just so he couldn’t bother her anymore how was he supposed to face her? And Fraser could stop pretending that he even wanted him to any time now. But Ray didn’t want to lose it on Fraser – Fraser didn’t deserve that – so he tried calming himself down with a deep breath and getting at the important stuff. “Welsh tell you everything?”  
   
“He asked that I talk to you.”  
   
Figured. The squad room had walked on eggshells since he had lost it on Dewey earlier, treating him like a time bomb it was too late to dismantle and the best defense was duck and cover. But Dewey’d had it coming, opening his stupid mouth and chirping “I wonder who she pissed off this time” after Frannie had sung out the news like a clueless little bird. It had taken both Huey and Welsh to pull Ray off, but at least he had gotten a good hit in. It wasn’t until afterward when Ray had stood there drained and frustrated looking at Dewey that he had felt stupid, realizing that a history of stuff like this was what made it a piece of cake for Stella’s brother to accuse him in the first place.  
   
Ray bit the inside of his mouth. It was like he hadn’t been able to control himself, like his rage had given him this super human strength. He’d bunched his hand in Dewey’s shirt, lifted him about four inches off the floor and bared his teeth ready to sink them in the guy’s throat, honest to God, and he remembered Dewey staring back him like a kid in a horror movie.  
   
“Ray . . .?” They’d stopped at another light and he could feel Fraser watching him this time where he didn’t turn away from the window. “Ray . . .?” Fraser reached out and put a hand on his shoulder, and for some reason Ray clamped down harder on his cheek. He could feel Fraser’s pulse again and . . .  
   
“My gun, Fraser.” The important words started coming out, and Jesus he sounded tired, like he’d already spent the past ten years in prison and no one wanted to hear that he was innocent, like Beth Boetrelle. Beth Boetrelle . . . Maybe it was payback time. “Someone stole my gun last night. I left it under the seat when I went into the club and when I looked this morning it was gone. No sign of a break-in or anything tampered with. No fingerprints. Nothing.”  
   
“So you reported it.”  
   
Ray nodded. He’d felt like stepped-on shit this morning, but he’d done that at least. Instinct maybe. He wasn’t stupid and would rather die slowly from a hundred paper cuts than go through that whole mess with Volpe all over again, ironical as that was. Now he was in for an even bigger mess with IA and the lawyers and crime squad that wasn’t going to help Stella get any better. But he’d have to deal with that when it happened, because right now . . .  
   
“They found it in the bushes outside Stella’s apartment building. One shot, my gun. Got her right in the chest.”  
   
His gun, black Beretta 92F . . . It didn’t matter whether he fired the shot or not. That little fact made him responsible. His fingers curled tighter until his knuckles burned. God, he wanted to crush something even if it was just his own hand.  
   
“My fuckin gun, Fraser . . .” His voice broke, and he tried to swallow down the lump in his throat, but it was too late.  
   
“Ray . . .” Fraser stopped the car, and when Ray blinked to clear the water from his eyes he realized they were in the parking lot of his apartment building. Home sweet home  
   
Ray didn’t say anything. He couldn’t. He just ploughed out of the car and slammed the door shut, heading for the stairs with Fraser right behind him. He had to get his keys in the lock by feel, and when he finally got inside he slammed it shut and scrubbed his eyes with his sleeve.  
   
“Ray . . .” Fraser laid a hand on his arm, patting him lightly through the black leather of his jacket, and Ray didn’t know whether he meant to coax him to just let it all out or to calm the hell down. He lifted his head to look at him, letting his own hand fall, thinking that maybe reminding himself someone else was in the room would stop him from blubbering all over. But looking at Fraser almost made it worse. Like things could get any worse.  
   
Fraser had this tortured look on his face like he wanted to put his arms around him but was too nice of a guy to humiliate Ray by acknowledging the fact that he was about to freaking cry. He knew Fraser wouldn’t think any less of him if he let his head fall on that big shoulder and just stayed there for a minute until he pulled himself together. It was one of those things you filed away and saved to fall back on in case everything else went to hell, which it had, in a handcart the size of a cruise ship. Ray had no choice but to file it away, and not out of pride or the fact that Fraser had frustrated the hell out of him lately, but because he couldn’t handle being close to Fraser right now. It was that _thing_ that was wrong with, that craving. He had this fear that if he got too close to anyone he wouldn’t be able to hold back.    
   
He threw himself down on the sofa, wrapped his arms around his knees, and let his head fall back against the cushions. He didn’t feel like crying anymore, he just felt the anger, that he had to get a grip on it and reel it in before it pulled him overboard and drowned him. Just . . . Stella. Who would do this to Stella? What had she ever done but prosecute assholes who deserved it and keep some yuppie scum from beating on his wife?  
   
“Clearly someone’s attempting to frame you, Ray,” Fraser spoke up from behind him like Ray had said the last part out loud. Maybe he had; he didn’t know, didn’t care. He only knew that if he turned around and watched Fraser pace back and forth he would puke. The whole thing made him ill.  
   
“Clearly.” He kept his eyes on the blank TV.   
   
“Was there perhaps anyone at the club last night who seemed to be keeping too close an eye on you? You do have an alibi to work with.”  
   
The club, the club. Ray knew it would come back to the club, that Fraser wouldn’t let it go. He’d seen that look when Fraser had opened the door last night, the _disapproval,_ like Fraser was his dad or something, and if Fraser couldn’t come out and say what the hell his problem was then he should just leave it alone, back off, let a guy move on and do this thing.  
   
Ray rubbed the back of his neck, really fucking tired all of a sudden. “Nah, Fraser.” He didn’t try all that hard to think back. No one in that club had given a crap about him.  
   
“What about the . . . the woman you met?” Woman. Anyone who knew anything about anything knew Fraser wasn’t thinking “woman” right then. Slut. He wanted to call her a slut. He’d wanted that since early this morning, since he couldn’t call her a whore outright, which he’d tried. “Her behavior certainly was odd.”   
   
“She was drunk and horny, Fraser. Nothing odd about that. Well, okay . . .” So maybe she’d gotten a little carried away. Ray had to admit he didn’t remember her all that well, just her white dress and her dark hair and the fact that she was drop-dead beautiful and that she’d been all over him. He’d blacked out afterward, and now with the news about Stella the whole thing felt like a memory from twenty years ago. Maybe . . .  
   
“Well she did bite you and leave you unconscious in an alley, Ray.” Fraser had to go and say exactly what Ray was thinking, and his voice had a bite to it now, like a rubber band snapping, but he got it under control and went on. “Perhaps her goal was to ensure you were otherwise occupied and incapacitated while Stella’s assailant broke into your car.”  
   
That . . . that hurt. It hurt unexpectedly, like a kick to the chest out of nowhere when Ray was already down. Fraser was supposed to be the last person to kick him when he was down. But it didn’t just hurt; it got under his skin and pissed him off, and Ray twisted around, his grip on that anger slipping a little.   
   
“Hold on here, Fraser, let me get this straight. First you think I gotta pay someone for sex and now it’s gotta be because she had some ulterior motive? Maybe I’m not the good-looking Mountie in the red suit, but that? That’s low, Fraser. I mean, why do these two things have to be connected? Maybe she just wanted a piece of me. Maybe my car got broken into at the Consulate.”  
   
He was moving his hands, getting himself worked up, but Fraser had gone still, looking at him like maybe he’d just have to resort to that Eskimo Joe trick to dismantle the time bomb even though everyone else said it was a lost cause and warned him to run for it.  
   
“Well I suppose it’s possible, Ray,” he said in his ‘well I guess a dead body could just get up and walk away’ voice, and that got Ray even more wound up.   
   
“You suppose it’s possible? Is that like Canadian for maybe theoretically, hypothetically or whatever someone could actually experience – wadayacallit? – carnal _desire_ for me, but not on your fucking planet?”  
   
Fraser’s mouth got real tight, like he wanted to snap at him not to put words in it. And maybe Ray was putting words in it, because sometimes he sure as hell didn’t know what to make of the words that came out. “You’re upset.” Fraser sounded like he was trying not to bite his tongue, and all the while Ray could hear him thinking ‘red wire, green wire, where the hell did I put the cutters before this thing goes _‘kaboom?’_ And that was . . .  
   
Ray got up and stomped over to the kitchen, yanking the fridge open for a beer. Some part of him realized he wasn’t really mad at Fraser, he just couldn’t stop. And he didn’t stop. “Yeah.” He popped the top on the bottle even though he had no real plans of drinking. It was just a security blanket, the beer. “Yeah. I’m upset because Stella got shot and now you’re telling me no one in their right mind could possibly want me, and on top of that you’re telling me Stella got shot because I had sex. What are you, some kind of Puritan or something? Have sex, get punished, is that how in works in that head of yours, Fraser?”  
   
“Ray . . .” Fraser’s patience was wearing thin and he looked at Ray like he had no idea where all this was coming from and maybe Ray didn’t either, but so what? “Ray, you have to admit you know nothing about this woman. I’ve warned you before, the nightclub atmosphere doesn’t exactly encourage –“  
   
“Ohhhh,” Ray didn’t let him finish. “We’re on that again.”  
   
 “On what, Ray?” Fraser had the nerve to stand there and play dumb, which was infuriating not to mention kind of insulting, and the last thing Ray needed right now was to get any angrier.   
   
“That _thing_ you’ve been doing lately. Look, I tell you about the places I like to go and you start with these hundreds of reasons why I shouldn’t go there, and when I say I don’t care, you go all moody on me and give me shit. So what is that, Fraser? Why can’t you let it go for now? I mean, Stella’s been shot. Is this really the time to dance in your pants and say ‘I told you so’? Because that’s not very Mountie-like, and I know you’re trying to help, but it’s not helping, Fraser.”  
   
“Ray, I never meant to imply –“  
   
Ray slammed the bottle on the counter. “The hell you didn’t. Look, it’s okay. Just say it, Fraser. Whatever it is, let’s just get it out of the way and get back to –“  
   
“Ray, I’m fairly sure you’ve mis –“  
   
That did it. That was one thing he couldn’t stand, the patronizing, or condensation, or whatever the fuck the hundred dollar word was. The lying.   
   
“Don’t tell me it’s all in my head, Fraser. Do not tell me that.” The volume in the room was getting louder. Ray raised his voice and Fraser raised his right back, and that felt good. He didn’t know why but it felt good whenever he got Fraser to yell back.   
   
“Ray . . .”   
   
Fraser was coming closer, and Ray’s body tightened, this thrill, this anticipation zipping through his blood. He knew that feeling, it used to hit him right before he nailed a case back in the days when he nailed cases without Fraser, and he knew he had to roll with that feeling, had to keep going now because he was close to something. So he kept going, kept talking, kept pushing.   
   
“You know what I liked about that woman at the club, Fraser? She didn’t leave room for guessing. She knew what she wanted and she went after it, you know? I like that Fraser. People who say what they mean, because I spend so much goddamn time chasing down clues day after day I just want something laid out for me.”  
   
Fraser didn’t like that. Fraser didn’t like that one bit. His shoulders went stiff and his fingers curled up at his sides. “Well apparently she wasn’t as upfront as you thought, Ray,” he snapped back, “seeing as how she left you in an alley. I may not be particularly adept at expressing myself, but I wouldn’t have done that.”  
   
Expressing himself? What did Fraser mean expressing himself? Why did Fraser have to pick the worst day of his life to confuse him like that? “Oh yeah?” Ray cocked his head to the side. “Is that right, Fraser? Well next time I’m in need of a back-alley fuck you’ll be the first person I call.”  
   
“Well there you are.”  
   
There he was? Where was he? What the hell was Fraser talking about? Ray couldn’t take it anymore. Fraser’d pulled the red wire instead of the green and now it was _boom boom,_ too late to duck. Explosion time.   
   
Ray advanced a step, setting his shoulders. He knew it was wrong, that Fraser really didn’t have a clue; he just couldn’t help himself. “You want some, Fraser? Is that what you’re telling me? You want it? Come on, come on, come on.” He took another step, spreading his arms out. “Come get it, Fraser. You jump on moving cars, come jump on this.”  
   
He thought maybe Fraser’d had it with him and wanted a fair shot at knocking his head off, and he thought maybe he wanted it, needed it, needed Fraser to show him where the line was because he didn’t know when to quit, like a car at full speed looking for a brick wall to crash into. And when Fraser started stalking toward him Ray thought _oh shit, we’re really gonna scrap,_ and he realized that was the last thing he wanted and he wished he’d taken Fraser up on that hug instead of yelling about shit that didn’t matter right now. Then Fraser grabbed him by the shoulders and Ray thought maybe Fraser was just going to shake him and tell him to calm the fuck down, think about the case, the alibi. But Fraser’s eyes blazed with this intense heat, and the grip on his shoulders practically bruised. He shoved Ray five steps back against the fridge, and . . .  
   
Fraser’s mouth was on him, and a moment later a big wall of red wool pinned him against the metal at his back, brass buttons grinding into his skin on one end and magnets on the other through his t-shirt. Ray could feel Fraser’s heart pounding and his own heart pounding and it seemed like they were beating in the same rhythm. He arched his head back instinctively, his mouth just melting into Fraser’s, part of him going “what the fuck?” and the rest of him screaming “finally!”  
   
He pulled back, so caught off guard he had to get his breathing back in rhythm, and he couldn’t help staring at Fraser like he’d been hit over the head with a two-by-four, already tongue-tied and panting. “You want it?” he managed to get out, really asking now in this thick whisper, and Fraser nodded, nodded so hard his head should have fallen off.  
   
Ray closed his eyes. His mouth was moving against Fraser’s again, hard like the anger from earlier had to go somewhere even though he wasn’t angry anymore. He was suddenly fucking high. He knew he was scraping Fraser’s jaw with the stubble on his face, but he didn’t care and more importantly Fraser didn’t seem to either. Fraser’s big hand curled under his chin to pull his mouth closer, like was Ray dumb enough to pull away and didn’t groan when Fraser stroked his skin a little with his calloused fingers. Christ, he wanted to drink Fraser, and that was a weird thought, but his mouth felt so good – firm and warm – that Ray hadn’t realized how much he had wanted to kiss Fraser until all of a sudden he couldn’t get enough of him.  
   
He wanted to get closer too, full-body contact close even though Fraser’s already chest pushed against his. That wasn’t good enough. He needed lower. Ray’s hands bunched in the red wool at Fraser’s back and pulled him as flush against his hip he could get, like he was dying of cold and needed Fraser’s warmth. He was cold – not shivering, just cold to the bone, and Fraser was all pounding blood and fire.  
   
Fraser was hard too, and he tried to push back like he was ashamed of it. That was dumb, because they were already kissing and when you got to kissing your dick just naturally wanted in on the party. So Ray pulled them closer, murmured “it’s okay” into Fraser’s mouth and pressed a hand flat to the small of Fraser’s back and thrust heir hips together, because if Ray needed to do something about the ache down there then so did Fraser.  
   
His other hand slid up to Fraser’s hair, and weirdly enough Ray felt so much stronger than him all of a sudden, like he could just crumple Fraser like a piece of paper even though Fraser was at least twenty pounds heavier and knew all that Mountie Kung Fu. But maybe that was all adrenaline from the way the thud of Fraser’s heart and the mad pounding in that cock of his drove him absolutely fucking crazy, like he could taste the blood racing through Fraser’s veins and he had never been so thirsty for anything in his life.  
   
He shoved his tongue in Fraser’s mouth and that felt good. Fraser was all wet and hot and . . . turned on. He started grinding himself against Ray’s leg and Ray shifted so that their cocks did a little liaising of their own through the pumpkin pants and the straining fabric of his jeans. That proved an overload for Fraser because he let out this sound and tore his mouth away like he was dying from the indignity of it all.  
   
Ray didn’t really hear it, the sound; his eyes were on Fraser’s neck. He watched his pulse throb and throb and his mouth dropped open, and all he could think about was tasting it, tearing into Fraser’s skin and sucking until he had a mouthful of warm red blood.  
   
He made a helpless sound of his own, sickened on some level, and then his mouth was there, brushing Fraser’s neck and opening, running his tongue over the vein and feeling the beats, feeling them all through him right down to his dick. He was so thirsty, so . . .  
   
Fraser was shuddering, letting out this broken sound against Ray’s ear. He was coming, and trying to hold it back like he didn’t want to come. But it was good, Fraser coming was good. Ray liked the way he shuddered and panted and groaned like he was dying, like coming hurt and the truth was being ripped out of him. And Ray’s teeth almost sank into Fraser’s skin above that stupid collar, but he couldn’t hold down because he started shuddering too and his dick was on fire with the jizz leaking out of him, and through the whole thing his mouth just went slack.  
   
Ray let go of Fraser once his brain finished liquefying and pouring out of his dick, practically collapsing against the fridge with the magnets digging into his back. He hardly felt them; his head was swimming and he was breathing too hard and he didn’t know which freaked him out more – the fact that he’d kind of just got it on with Fraser or that he’d been this close to drinking his blood.  
   
Fraser had his back turned, and Ray just stared at him while the stars cleared from his vision, this big broad-shouldered wall of red facing the stove and keeping his head down like he’d die of shame if anyone saw his face right then. Ray swallowed – gulped in air, more like – and all it once it hit him like a two ton brick falling right on his head. _Shit, I just pushed Fraser into sex._ The room was silent, and he could see Fraser straightening his uniform, the nape of his neck shining with sweat. His neck, oh fucking Christ his neck . . . Ray ran his hands over his face, over the sweaty heat of his own skin. He could still feel the pulsing in his cock, and the lingering imprint of Fraser’s cock against him, rock hard and . . . big, and he could still feel the beat of Fraser’s pulse against his tongue, and the urge to taste. . .  And he didn’t know what to freaking think.   
   
He had to say something, had to do something about the dead silence in the room now that his breathing had slowed. He hated silence, hated waiting, and he couldn’t cope with the sight of Fraser standing there like a giant block of wood.  
   
“Fraser . . .” Ray lowered his hands and lifted his head. “I’m sorry, I uh . . .” He started to regret opening his mouth once the words came out, like maybe if he kept it shut they could pretend this whole thing never happened, the kissing thing and the blood thing. But he had to say something, because he’d started it and he didn’t want Fraser to think . . . .  
   
Fraser turned around, his head still lowered. His face was awfully flushed, but his uniform didn’t have a single wrinkle and he kept his hands folded over his front all proper Mountie-like like there wasn’t a shitload of jizz drying in his pants.  
   
He bent a little at the waist and freaking . . . bowed, all formal and proper and _stiff_ like he desperately wanted to pretend he hadn’t humped Ray’s leg like a crazed dog a minute ago. “Not at all, Ray. I’m afraid I’m the one who’s taken advantage of your vulnerable condition.”  
   
His vulnerable . . .?  Jesus, Ray had forgotten all about Stella, and how wrong was it that just for a millisecond he hated her for making it the wrong moment? Or maybe he hated Fraser for making him forget and for having such a stick up his ass all of a sudden and trying to take responsibility like Ray couldn’t be expected to know any better. But Fraser didn’t mean that. Fraser was just letting him off the hook, being a nice guy.  
   
And more importantly Fraser wanted to leave. Ray knew that look on his face; he was uncomfortable as all hell. Ray thought about offering Fraser the bathroom to clean himself up, but it was like the hug thing earlier; acknowledging something like that out loud would just crack Fraser into little pieces right now, so he had to let him go, had to keep from saying one word – one god damned word – as Fraser went over to the couch to pick up his stupid sacred hat and headed out the door.  And when he was gone, all Ray could do was hit the fridge with his fist and think _fuck fuck fuck fuck, how could this shit get any worse?_  
   
**  
   
Fraser found something profoundly humiliating about walking the streets in broad daylight with semen stuck to his boxers. In fact, he had begun to think the trip back to the Consulate the longest walk of shame ever imposed on an individual in Chicago. Not that he didn’t deserve the shame, given the way he had irrevocably disgraced himself back there in Ray’s apartment, and the demanding nature of the male sex organ hardly excused the appalling lack of discipline, the insensitivity toward Ray’s predicament, and the . . . force behind his actions. He had apologized of course, but that did about as much good as apologizing to a cripple for robbing him when you knew he couldn’t chase after you.  
   
One could argue that Ray had provoked him – Fraser had certainly not appreciated the accusations flying from Ray’s mouth or the way he had almost crudely offered himself for the taking beneath all that snarling anger. But Fraser only did himself further discredit blaming a man half mad with worry for a woman he had loved twenty-three years now. For God’s sake, he should have _left_ once it became evident Ray was in no state to reason. Loyalty and love meant resisting inflicting harm at all costs, not giving in to excuses.  
   
Worst of all, Fraser could still feel the heavy throbbing of Ray’s body where he had been pressed so maddeningly close against him, along with the grinding heat of his mouth. His blood thrummed with the remembered exhilaration of it and the strangely dangerous thrill as Ray’s teeth had nearly sunk into his neck. He could still feel the prickle, the anticipation. Indeed, the entire scene replayed itself in Fraser’s mind with disturbing freshness as if he had actively chosen to preserve the details, and his middle tightened at the image of himself seizing Ray with both hands, forcing their mouths together in the first place to silence him, or challenge him perhaps out of some unconscious need to protest the fact that all the anger Ray foisted at him came on behalf of another.  
   
Dear God, the whole thing got worse and worse the more Fraser thought about it.  
   
The staggering inappropriateness of what had happened did not even touch upon the oddities. One moment Ray had appeared almost fragile sitting there in his car occupying less than a third of the passenger seat he was so crumpled up with worry, and the next Fraser sincerely doubted he could have fended Ray off if he wanted to with the way Ray had clutched him, pulled him closer with that almost inhuman strength. Of course, the body could perform great feats under duress, but even that did not account for Ray’s pale skin and those almost incandescently feral eyes, and those teeth piercing demandingly into the soft skin of Fraser’s neck. Fraser cleared his throat, his face growing hot. It seemed that he was now the one unable to focus, in a productive manner at least.  
   
Ray didn’t need this. Ray had an ex-wife in the hospital and a possible criminal charge to worry about. Maybe he was simply ill. More to the point, this was no time for Fraser to think about what he had apparently wanted from Ray all along and thus what all his sore feelings and misjudged protectiveness of late amounted to. But he could not help thinking about it, and so he stopped and sat down on a park bench to ruminate for a few hours, staring at trees and finding the revelation fairly shocking that what he had believed simple concern for Ray’s safety had been nothing more than a cloak for his jealousy and possessiveness and a host of other things despicable for a man his age. Worse, Ray had seen through him in his own way, and the words “I hadn’t realized my affection for you had such a physical component” couldn’t possibly hold any water now. Frankly, the idea of looking Ray in the face again terrified Fraser enough without breeching the subject, and Fraser found himself wondering – perhaps uselessly – when he had started coveting Ray and becoming so resentful of anyone else he might take an interest in. The answer, sadly enough, was that he couldn’t recall ever feeling any differently.  
   
Still, Fraser sat there pondering the matter intently enough to earn several odd looks from the passers-by, the kind that made him wonder if the whole city sensed the drying, embarrassing mess in his trousers. It was a measure of how upset he was that he should consider something so illogical. Normally Fraser would have attributed the strange looks to his uniform and the fact that so few people in the city bothered to sit down in the open and appreciate nature.  
   
Darkness had long since fallen by the time he got moving again, and as he did so he could not help but hear the voice of Ray Vecchio in his head, cautioning him that _you’re gonna get your head blown off one of these days, Benny, walking through the wrong part of town at the wrong hour._ Fraser had never heeded those warnings about the dangers of the streets after dark, though he had filed them away for those in less of a position to protect themselves than he, but he wished Ray Vecchio were here now so he could gloat that for once he was justified, seeing as how one could hardly expect Ray Kowalski to offer him a ride home considering the circumstances. Of course, Ray Vecchio would be scandalized to say the least if he knew what Fraser had done with Ray Kowalski, a thought which forced Fraser to admit to himself that Ray Kowalski had never explicitly demonstrated the same prejudice. But that was beside the point.   
   
The Consulate was quiet when he reached it, which came as a relief since he would rather not encounter Inspector Thatcher in his current state and he rarely had the patience for Turnbull even in the best of moods. Yet he made his way down the hall toward his office with the intention of tidying himself immediately for their sake and the Consulate’s and perhaps to salvage what remained of his pride, thinking that a cold shower and a change of clothes would at least give him the dignity of being presentable should he happen to encounter either of them.  
   
Diefenbaker barked when they reached the door, but Fraser only shook his head in annoyance, sure he was merely protesting turning in so early in the evening when they would usually still be working or eating or otherwise out with Ray – whose company Dief found particularly agreeable on account of the donuts and chili dogs and occasional pats. In fact, Fraser hadn’t realized until he checked his watch to note the hour what little time he actually spent here outside of work hours these days. Lately, that time had amounted to so little apartment hunting seemed impractical and he had begun to realize that Ray’s apartment felt like home to him now instead, after a fashion. The thought struck him sadly, and the idea of keeping to himself all weekend shut away in his cramped office left him hollow inside. He sighed, wondering if he would ever learn that letting his desires get the better of him always ended badly.   
   
He opened the door, and startlement immediately replaced that hollow feeling. The room was lit with candles, at least a dozen – burning on the desk, the shelves, the window sill. He recognized them as his own, the broad pillars he kept in the closet for emergency, and apart from the immediate panic that someone could have burned the place down and the annoyance that someone had gone through his things, Fraser stared in bemusement.  
   
Turnbull had to be the culprit. The man had an uncanny obsession with keeping abreast of possible power outages, which Fraser thought stemmed from a subconscious fear of the dark. He must have become convinced of a storm later in the night. The window was closed, but Fraser immediately called himself a fool for looking there first once his eyes darted to his cot.  
   
Two objects lay on his pillow, a black handgun and a plain white envelope. He recognized the gun, another black Beretta identical to the kind Ray carried. His chest tightened, and he snatched up the envelope.  
   
There was no name inscribed on the back, but Fraser tore it open anyway and unfolded the paper inside, presented with a clear hand in thick felt ink. The writing struck him as distinctly feminine, though he disliked generalizing, and the words themselves cut into him like glass.  
   
 _Ben,  
            I wonder who your friend will go after next, and I wonder how you’ll live with sending someone else you love to prison. He won’t be able to resist the thirst forever, not once the changes start. They come quick, you know. They did for me. And by the way, if you see him again, tell him I meant what I said last night. Ray Vecchio really has gotten better looking._  
   
There was no signature, but then again there was no need for one.   
   
Victoria.   
   
Dear God.   
   
Fraser hands tightened on the letter and he went cold, fighting the disbelief and the . . . He almost hoped he were the victim of a demented prank, and frankly he had no proof that he wasn’t. He drew a measured breath to slow an accelerated heart rate and one by one tried to register the emotions flooding to the surface. There was shock, naturally. After two years Fraser had grudgingly come to assume that her criminal life had caught up with her in the form of a bullet or that she had been pursued and arrested the night she had vanished and Ray Vecchio and the Chicago PD had simply lacked the heart to tell him. Fraser had wrestled with his own culpability and naiveté on the subject and then closed the door on it, and here it was yanked open again without warning.  
   
There was no relief. That’s what proved truly shocking. Here he had reason to believe she was still alive and there was no relief, only dread and fear and that heavy cold feeling gripping his chest like a hand made of the ice he had first found her buried in. He had sent her to prison, had been prepared to jump on that train and run away with her to do God knew what, and the most he could summon now was an ugly reluctant feeling as though he really would have preferred she were dead.   
   
It was . . . more than Fraser could bear. His eyes drifted numbly around the room as though some invisible presence had asked him who she was, and oddly enough when he told the story in his mind it was not the same story he must have repeated half a dozen times over the past ten years, about the blizzard and Fortitude pass and that poem. It was the rest of it, the part here in Chicago. She must have lit the candles to remind him of it, and rest assured that reminder came painfully. They had lit so many candles. His throat tightened and he was glad no one was there to ask him about her now. Fraser was certain he would choke if he even tried to say her name.  
   
He could not bring himself to let go of her letter, and he found himself moving, making his way toward the closed window where she had obviously slipped through. He ran his free hand over the sill first out of some irrational need for contact with her, to touch where she had been, and then for a more disloyal reason. Tentatively, he pulled his hand away and licked the tips of his fingers, and under the usual taste of dust and paint he thought he detected the flavor of marigolds and freshly laid cement, neither of which revealed anything without further investigation.  
   
He had to focus instead on what she had written, had to think of it as evidence perhaps, much as entertaining that thought knotted up his insides. Her words did not come across as precisely friendly, certainly not that of a lover managing to reach him at long last after all this time. On the contrary, they seemed to carry a threat or at the very least a disturbing foreknowledge. Fraser had no doubt that was Ray’s gun on the pillow, and not the weapon that had shot Stella, but a back-up perhaps and one Ray had neglected to mention stolen. It chilled him to imagine how she had gotten her hands on it, and _why._ One minute she had leaned from that train pleading with him to go with her and now she knew entirely too much about Ray’s predicament not to have a hand in it.  
   
Changes. What could she possibly have meant by changes? And thirst for that matter, a thirst that would send Ray to prison, one that he was responsible for. Fraser thought of all the odd things he had noted about Ray of late, starting from when he had stumbled in early this morning clutching the bleeding wound on his neck and all at once Fraser wished to God he could convince himself he was dreaming. Ray had mentioned a Tori, a beautiful woman with dark hair, and suddenly one thing became horrifically clear. Victoria had been the woman to seduce Ray at the club last night.  
   
Fraser sank down onto his cot, doubting words even existed for the feelings flooding him now.  
 


	3. Chapter 3

They wanted to ask him some questions, stupid questions Ray would rather answer with his fist. Welsh got him on the phone a half hour ago, and when Welsh called you at home on a Saturday afternoon sounding like somebody died you knew it wasn’t because you’d forgotten to fill out your paperwork.  
   
So Ray got out of bed, got dressed, and got in the car. He didn’t have much choice really, because he knew how the game worked – either he went down to the precinct and said the magic words or IA sent someone out to pick him up, and once IA thought you had something to hide you were toast.  He wasn’t about to let anyone think he had something to hide.  
   
He drove slow though, for once in his life. He drove like he a guy about to face the firing squad in some kind of bad dream where everything played out in slow motion. And he kept telling himself I’m innocent, I’m innocent, but that didn’t do any good, because he knew from experience that at the end of the day that didn’t matter. What mattered was what people thought, how things looked, and at the moment things looked pretty grim.  
   
People honked at him left and right to speed up, but Ray didn’t even bother giving them the finger. He just focused on the road, held onto the steering wheel like he wasn’t going to let anyone tear him out of that car and take him to jail, rounded a corner, and almost ran straight into Fraser in the crosswalk.   
   
Fraser.  
   
Christ.  
   
Ray hadn’t counted on seeing Fraser until he picked him up from the Consulate for work on Monday, which he knew would be pretty fucking awkward, but he’d banked on a whole two days to get his head together and work out something to say, if Fraser let him say anything and didn’t bolt the second the topic came up. He really hadn’t counted on running into him crossing the street in his jeans and leather jacket with his arms full of brown paper heavy-looking grocery bags. That was awkward times ten, because no way Fraser didn’t see him right there in front of him and Ray couldn’t just drive by and shoot a hole the size of a volcanic crater in his lets-try-not-being-a-dickhead-to-the-one-guy-who-can-help-you plan. Fuck. Why couldn’t he just put Fraser on pause until Monday until he was good, until he sorted up from down, until . . .?  
   
He pulled over and rolled down the window, and next thing he knew he was yelling out like nothing in the world was wrong.   
   
“Come on, Fraser. Let me give you a ride.”  
   
Fraser stopped dead when he reached the curb, and the way he stood there and hesitated put a big flashing neon sign on the fact that everything was wrong. Ray got that they hadn’t exactly parted on let’s-catch-the-game-tomorrow-night vibes, but it hurt to see that empty look on Fraser’s face and think that maybe Fraser didn’t want to get in his car anymore or anywhere near him for that matter. But then Ray thought about how many times over the past twenty-four hours his mouth had watered thinking about that hot pulsing taste of Fraser’s skin under his tongue and he wondered if Fraser should even be in the car with him, or better yet if he should even be driving the damn car, because ever since Ray had woken up yesterday morning with that stupid bite gone he’d felt weaker and weaker and just out of it. Now he was dizzy and thirsty and his head hurt like he hadn’t eaten in ten years, even though he’d made peace with the fact that skipping meals wouldn’t help him nail Stella’s attacker any faster and had eaten and eaten and drank loads of water that didn’t seem to do any good. It was like he was immune to food all of a sudden, and that was dumb, as dumb as garlic suddenly becoming fucking Kryptonite back there in the Consulate kitchen. And speaking of dumb, you’d think he’d look like shit when he checked himself in the mirror, given how sick he felt, but no. His skin had this freaky pale glow and his eyes seemed brighter and . . . Monday he’d have to call the doctor to see if that Tori chick hadn’t given him anything – something he really didn’t want to think about right now, and anyway first things first.  
   
After about twenty years of staring at the GTO like he’d never seen it before, Fraser climbed in and set his bags down on the floor mat like there was a ban on them speaking to each other and he couldn’t just ask Ray to pop the trunk. He took a long time getting comfortable too, and when Ray pulled off he didn’t say a word, watching the road like he was the one heading to his doom. The whole god damn car caught on fire with his silence until the heat was so thick Ray just wanted to speed up, get where he had to be so he could jump the hell out and get away from the burn and the depressing disaster of it all. It cut at him too, because this awkwardness was all his fault for blowing up at the wrong person and he didn’t know how to fix it, and he really could use some encouragement right now or maybe just a distraction. They usually had _something_ to say when they got in the car together, even if it was just Fraser bitching about the stuff on the radio or the traffic laws he loved so much.  
   
But Ray admitted to himself he didn’t really know how they could carry on like normal and ignore the giant purple elephant strutting its stuff right there in front of them. He’d wondered about it all last night actually, when he couldn’t sleep, when he’d had to face the fact that it wasn’t Stella keeping him awake with that restless itch to call the hospital every five minutes and see if anything had improved. He’d wanted to call. He’d wanted to call so bad he ended up throwing the phone, but he just couldn’t face hearing “nope, sorry, she still might die any minute now” any better than he could face questions and accusations and _everything_ But that wasn’t it, that wasn’t what had him all revved up and freaked out. He couldn’t stop thinking about Fraser. He’d taken a shower and crawled under the covers and it was like he might as well have taken Fraser to bed with him because Ray had closed his eyes and all of a sudden Fraser’s hard-on was there grinding against his leg and his mouth was ten kinds of wet, kissing the hell out of him. And there they were in Ray’s mind all over again, getting hot and heavy up against the fridge, Fraser in that red coat like something out of a kinky gay Mountie does Chicago uniform porno, humping and tongue-kissing with Ray’s hand a bare couple of inches from grabbing Fraser’s ass. Ray had gotten so hard remembering it all, working his fist up and down his dick and thrusting up into his own hand like some kind of oversexed freak, that when he came he thought if he weren’t under the blankets his jizz would have splattered the ceiling.  
   
So maybe he had some kind of experimentation thing – a lot of guys did, especially the young ones, even if they wouldn’t admit to it under torture. Maybe sometimes you looked at those doors the world showed you with the big red “Forbidden! Forbidden!” sign and you just had to know what lurked on the other side, just on principle, like the curiosity that killed the cat or your partnership or something. Maybe boning a Mountie was some deep-seated universal American fetish no one knew about, something everyone was dying to try like anal sex or being tied up or spanked by a guy in uniform. Or maybe Ray was just so horny and whacked out he didn’t care who got him off – it worked like that in prison, apparently. Or maybe he was digging too deep here. It wouldn’t be the first time.   
   
The boning Fraser he could deal with, sort of. It happened. They both had dicks and even Fraser had to know how things sometimes got riled up down there at the worst possible moment. He could apologize for the boning. Fight, fuck, drink were pretty much the three basic American male responses to stress, and it wasn’t that hard to say “Hey, I was off my nut and I didn’t want to hit you and I’m already hungover or I should be, so I only had one option left.”  
   
It was the salivating over Fraser’s neck that got to him. Wanting to bite your friend’s neck and drink his blood just wasn’t normal. It wasn’t gay-normal or kinky-normal or any kind of normal, except for cannibal normal, and that was a road Ray would _not_ go down. The whole thing didn’t even make sense. All of a sudden that chick bites him, drinks his blood, and now he had a biting, blood-drinking thing too? That was . . .  
   
That was Dracula-normal.  
   
And that road . . . That road didn’t exist so he didn’t know what he was thinking.  
   
So Ray focused on the real road, or tried to, the one with the morons who couldn’t drive and the people in the crosswalks with the strollers he’d rather die than hit. But after a couple blocks the silence in the car ate him up and he couldn’t take it anymore. He started tapping his fingers on the steering wheel and after a minute took a deep breath to stop himself from getting jittery, thinking that maybe he had a shot at making things better if tried some of that apologizing. _Something_ had to get better here, before he went crazy.   
   
“Fraser . . .” Ray didn’t turn and look over at the passenger side, but he thought he felt Fraser jump in the seat next to him at the sound of his name, like maybe he got sucked into some black hole of deep dark Mountie thoughts and Ray had startled him out of it. That didn’t help, because who knew what Fraser was thinking, but Ray kept talking anyway. “Look, about yesterday, I don’t know . . . I was way over the line, Fraser, and I’m sorry. I’m really freaking sorry.”  
   
Wasn’t that the fucking truth, but Fraser was apparently a hundred miles away back on his home planet because it took him a minute to answer, and when he did he sounded dead tired like it killed him to speak at all. Maybe he hadn’t gotten any sleep last night either, which made Ray feel more like shit than he already did.   
   
“It’s really not important right now, Ray.”  
   
Ray blinked, wrestling down the fact that he hated it when people brushed him off, but he couldn’t blame Fraser for wanting to avoid the whole humping a guy against the fridge subject and so he forced himself to be patient, which for Ray felt about as foreign as wearing a pink skirt and doing cartwheels.   
   
“The hell it isn’t, Fraser,” he said quietly. “I’ve been worried about it all night. That you might not want to, you know, do this anymore.”  
   
Fraser gave him this vague nod that either meant “Yeah I’ve been worried about it too” or “You got that right, I’m out” and answered in that same dead voice, “I’ve had other things on my mind.”  
   
Okay maybe that was a good sign. Maybe that was Fraser’s way of saying a little friskiness in front of the fridge was small potatoes compared to Stella getting shot and the fingers pointing at him and maybe they should forget it and move on to what mattered. Right. Ray figured he’d better get his head moving in that direction anyway given where he was headed. “Tell me about it,” he sighed. “Welsh called me in, told me they wanna ask me some questions. Questions, they think I’m that dumb, Fraser? Because I only got one answer, and that’s I didn’t do anything. I’d die before –“  
   
“Justice will prevail, Ray,” Fraser cut him off, though he didn’t sound all that convinced. But that was okay because Ray wasn’t in the mood to be pacified and maybe it was good Fraser stopped him before he got himself worked up again.  
   
“It’s all part of the little circus we run from day-to-day, Fraser. You gotta have a clown, so sometimes it ends up being the wrong guy.” Ray tried to laugh a little, but the sound got stuck in his throat, so he changed the subject because he didn’t want to think about what might happen at the precinct. “What’s with you?”  
   
There was a long pause, and even though Ray was busy watching the road he knew Fraser was looking at him now, studying him like a piece of goddamn evidence, and when Fraser looked at you like that he saw everything. Everything – like wounds he cleaned and bandaged on your neck that were no longer there. And that was another thing about running into Fraser out of the blue before Ray was ready. Had he known, he would have put on another turtleneck and slapped the gauze back in place so Fraser wouldn’t notice anything freaky.  
   
Fraser didn’t say anything about the gauze or the lack thereof. For a minute he seemed to slip into that black hole again, but after what felt like forever he drew in a breath and said, “That woman you met at the club, what did she look like?”  
   
Ray stiffened up. This was the subject that got them into trouble yesterday, but if Fraser wanted to talk about it now he could do that and keep his cool this time. In fact, Ray even smiled remembering how he had practically passed out just looking at her, his last good memory before everything had gone to hell.  
   
“Fraser, she was beautiful. She had this dark hair and these blue eyes and skin like the goddamn snow in Canada you like so much, and this dress, Fraser.” He whistled through his teeth. “No, forget the dress. She had this voice . . . like church bells or something, I swear.”  
   
He glanced over at Fraser, and something in the guy’s face just plummeted, like you could see his heart dropping right into the pit of his stomach. “It was Victoria, Ray.”  
   
Ray almost crashed the car. He had to have heard that wrong.  
   
“That – that psycho from the files a couple years back who tried to set up you and Vecchio?” His voice came out high pitched like someone was strangling him, and Ray kind of wished someone would strangle him and put him out of his misery, because things had just gone from bad to nightmarish in about five seconds and all of a sudden he did _not_ have a good feeling in his gut. _Tori..._ The woman was about as subtle as a kick in the face.  
   
“I’d thank you not to call her a psycho, Ray, but yes,” Fraser went ice cold on him.   
   
Not a good feeling. Not a good feeling. Ray ran through in his mind what he knew of this Victoria character, which pretty much amounted to robbing a bank in Alaska, shooting a guy point blank at the zoo, and making like Fraser and Vecchio had gotten their paws on the million dollars she had stolen ten years before – that and the fact she was legally dead. All of which was completely separate from what he knew of her according to how Fraser talked about her. Okay, maybe he almost never did, but he’d said the name Victoria enough times for Ray to know she wasn’t just his weekly damsel-in-distress that he did his best to keep at arms’ length. To Fraser, she was something special.  
   
“So you loved her.” Fraser didn’t say anything. He wasn’t looking at him anymore, and even though he had turned to face forward again Ray didn’t think he really saw the road either. He was lost in his own head or something. So Ray pulled over, because this was just one more thing he had to try and fix, one more gaping hole ripped into his integrity these past couple days. “Look, Fraser, I’m sorry.” The words came out rushed. This could get messier and more damaging than any stupid circus games at the precinct, and what Fraser thought of him sure mattered a lot more than whether some power-bent IA guy thought him guilty or not. A thing like this between two guys . . . Ray’d seen it happen, and it was ten times worse with the two of them because Fraser didn’t have many chicks and he was obviously stuck on this one. “I didn’t know. I mean, she said she knew Vecchio, but in a city like this a lot of girls could know Vecchio, you know?”  
   
Ray waited for Fraser to throw him a bone or something, wishing he had a bulldozer to plough through the pile of shit that kept building up between them lately, but Fraser just kept staring straight ahead. “I see.” His mouth barely moved when he spoke.   
   
That was all Ray got, colder than cold like talking to a wall, no getting through. Ray’s hands started to sweat on the steering wheel. This was getting terrifying. “So . . .you’re mad now because I slept with the woman you love?”  
   
“I wouldn’t call it sleeping with, Ray,” Fraser nit-picked at the dashboard because he apparently couldn’t bring himself to look Ray in the face. “It’s more like fornication.”   
   
Well wasn’t that just fucking Biblical and a hit waaaay below the belt? But Ray kept his head. He wasn’t going to lose it if it killed him because Fraser was just being defensive and avoiding the question and he knew all about that better than anyone.  
   
“So you still love her.”  
   
“The answer’s beside the point.” Fraser said it to the grocery bags this time, like he was sinking deeper and deeper into denial, or avoidance.  
   
Ray sucked in a long breath through his nose and tried not to yell Fraser snap out of it and look at me here before I rip the fucking steering off and beat myself in the head with it! “No, Fraser,” he got out in a reasonably calm voice, “it’s exactly the point. It’s hitting the – the hammer right on the head. Otherwise, you’d tell me how you’re so sure it was her at the club, because you know damn well if you know where she is I’d have to bring her in. I mean, she’s wanted for murder.”  
   
Fraser’s mouth moved, and he lowered his head even more, his chin almost on his chest now. “I’m aware of that, Ray,” he said in a voice that made perfectly clear the thought hadn’t even occurred to him or maybe he just didn’t care. And that was scary, scarier than Fraser jumping in front of bad guys with guns. You could predict that and cover him, but this . . .? Who knew which way Fraser would bounce, and suddenly the gap between them stretched real wide and Ray would have wiped his hands on his jeans if he weren’t gripping the steering wheel so hard.   
   
“So you’re not gonna tell me anything?” He was starting to get desperate. This mess was just fucking unbelievable. Why didn’t someone just shoot him already? “You think I did it on purpose, had sex with her out of some . . . I dunno . . . because I was mad at you? If you know something, Fraser, you gotta tell me.”  
   
Ray didn’t even want to know what he meant by “know something.”  He just knew the guy he’d spent most of his time with for the past year was freezing up on him, shutting him out all of sudden, and he didn’t have a clue in hell what was going on in Fraser’s head. And when Fraser answered him he made like he didn’t hear half of what Ray said.  
   
“I think it would behoove you to take greater care with whom you chose to have relations, Ray.”  
   
Whoa, another hit. Ding, ding, point for Fraser. Kick the guy when he’s down. “Yeah, Fraser?” He was only human; he couldn’t help but get a little pissed off, because who knew if Fraser meant Victoria or the two of them, and if he meant what happened yesterday Ray sure as hell hadn’t been the only one coming like orgasm has been discontinued. “How well did you know her before you two decided to get wild? You interview her or something? Because from where I’m looking at it we both didn’t know what was what and made a pretty big mistake.” And Fraser could take that any way he wanted, them or Victoria, but apparently he opted to follow Ray’s lead and go with Victoria.  
   
He seemed to fall apart right there on the spot, dropping the stiff military Mountie pose and sinking into the seat with this huge sigh. Ray wanted to put his arm around him and tell Fraser it was okay, he didn’t have to answer, but Ray didn’t know if Fraser wanted him touching him, so he just listened.  
   
“She robbed a bank with two men in Alaska and came over the border in an airplane forced down because of weather. The pilot left her, and I tracked her through a storm that had been blowing for days to a place called Fortitude Pass. I’d lost everything – my pack, my supplies . .. I found her huddled in a crag on the lee side of a mountain, very near death. I staked a lean-to with my rifle, draped my coat across it, and just covered her body with mine and held onto her, talking to her all the while to keep her from slipping away. It snowed for a day . . . and a night . . . and another day, and when I couldn't talk anymore I –. I was delirious, aware that I was dying, and all I had to hold on to was her voice. The most beautiful voice . . . She recited a poem, over and over . . .”  
   
He stopped to swallow, his voice cracking a little, and Ray was pretty sure this was the closet Fraser ever came to crying. He wanted to tell him he didn’t have to finish, but Fraser just cleared his throat and went on, staring at his hands in his lap.  
   
“The storm finally broke, and after a day we found my pack and we ate everything in one sitting, and it took us another four days to reach the nearest outpost. We camped that night just outside the town, and when I held her in my arms she asked me to let her go. No one knew that I found her. I could have just let her walk away that night. But to answer your question, Ray, I knew there was a darkness in her. ”    
   
Ray sat quiet for a long time after Fraser finished. So Fraser set out on a job, saved the woman he was supposed to capture, and decided to beat himself up over the next ten years for doing exactly what a cop was supposed to do? Ray didn’t get it. Did Fraser think arresting people was easy? He ran into people he didn’t want to bring in all the time, young kids stupid enough to hang with the wrong crowd or girls who just happened to pick the wrong guy. But if you robbed a bank then you robbed a bank. Nobody got a pass for being beautiful. And maybe Fraser thought that just because you fucked somebody you owed them lifelong protection, but the world didn’t work that way either, at least not on Ray’s planet.  
   
But Fraser just sat there like someone had ripped his guts out with a meathook and he just confessed to murder. Worse, he looked really lost now, so lost that Ray didn’t think he’d say another word the rest of the car ride if Ray just left him alone. Ordinarily, he might have, but Fraser hadn’t exactly answered any of the important questions yet.  
   
“So what’d she want with me? Nothing good, right?”  
   
Fraser sighed, pulling himself together a little. “I thought you’d learned the wisdom, Ray, of refraining from presuming the worst of beautiful women who happen to be attracted to you.”  
   
Attracted to him? Ray had to laugh at that, or at least he wanted to. He couldn’t with his stomach doing this little flip flop. So Fraser was going to cover for her, maybe even run off with her. Ray felt suddenly sicker than he had all day. That would be the worst thing right now, the nail in the coffin. No point in lying.   
   
No point in hiding that it pissed him off to see Fraser beating himself up over something so stupid either.   
   
“Look, Fraser, I don’t mean any disrespect, but here’s what I don’t get. This woman shoots Dief and tries to get you and Vecchio thrown in jail, and you stand by her? That’s not very Canadian and honorable. That’s selfish. I mean, how do you love someone who sets up your friends? Someone did that to you I’d drop them faster than you can say psychiatric patient. I know I’ve called you selfish before, but Vecchio didn’t deserve that, and you gotta feel bad about it. Or maybe you do, maybe that’s why you hate your dick so much because let me tell you, Fraser, there’s nothing more selfish than a dick. It’s the most honest thing there is. But this woman, Fraser, I don’t get it. What, she’s all of a sudden above the law because you stuck in it her? Otherwise, I don’t get you falling for someone like her.”  
   
He did get it, actually. He’d gotten it right off the bat when that card shark chick had come into the picture a couple months ago. Fraser was naïve. Fraser thought every woman was the girl from the igloo next door bullied by some big bad monster like the other two guys involved in the bank robbery maybe, and for a guy who was so smart Fraser didn’t know a hell of a lot.  
   
“She saved me, Ray,” Fraser tried to argue. “I was dying and the sound of her voice saved me. I repaid her by sending to her prison.”  
   
“Come on, Fraser. You’re a cop. I’m a cop. You gotta bring somebody in, you bring them in. No favoritism on who pays their dues and who doesn’t. In fact, if you committed a crime, I’d have to bring you in. It’d kill me, but I’d have to do it. Harboring a fugitive, Fraser, that’s a crime.”  
   
That got Fraser to turn and look at him. Ray didn’t know how to read what was there on his face, but it definitely wasn’t the look of someone caught red-handed. It looked more like surprise, but not the angry kind, and maybe even gratitude. It couldn’t have been that though, because it didn’t make sense and all of a sudden Fraser was gathering his grocery bags and opening the car door.  
   
“You know, I think if I walked from here I could get some exercise.”  
   
Exercise my ass, Ray wanted to say, but Fraser was already getting out of the car and that made Ray panic. “Come on, Fraser!” he called after him. Jesus he couldn’t do anything right lately. “Fraser!” Fraser was starting to walk away. Fuck. Ray hit the steering wheel, and as par for the course when he got this stressed out he yelled out about the stupidest thing that could possibly come out of his mouth at that moment. ”Fraser, she shot the dog. You’re lucky he’s still talking to you!”  
   
He didn’t know if Fraser heard him. The guy seemed deafer than Dief all of a sudden, already halfway down the block with his back as stiff as a brick wall. In fact, Ray wondered where the dog was, probably with Victoria, getting ready to run off with her and Fraser like a happy little Canadian pack. Or maybe Victoria was an American – Alaska was in the US, technically. Ray didn’t care. He just knew in his gut that Fraser knew something and that he was losing the guy.  
   
His phone rang in his coat pocket, and he didn’t have to pick it up to know it was Welsh demanding to know what the hell had happened to him, so he gave up and let Fraser go and took off down the street at something resembling the speed limit, because neither staring after Fraser nor driving at snail pace would help him get out of the clown suit any faster.  
   
What did he care what they did to him now at the station anyway? The world had already fallen apart on him in about the space of five minutes, thanks to Victoria and his own stupid mouth. He shouldn’t have criticized, should have learned from Stella that his _opinions_ always got him in trouble. But why beat around the bush? He should have kept it in his pants, that’s what he should have done, on both occasions. Too late for that. Ray let out a breath and slumped in the driver’s seat. Should have, could have weren’t going to fix anything now.   
   
But when he got out of the car and made his way into the building, he thought maybe Fraser was safer walking away. A police station was kind of like the ER, always crowded with staff and freaks no matter what day of the week and twice as bad on holidays, only Ray didn’t see staff or freaks this time, he saw necks and wrists and his mouth watered again with that _thirst,_ and any glimpse at all of anything red and the words _blood, blood, blood_ pounded in his head like he had Audrey Two in there. All of which only brought yesterday to mind, Fraser’s red coat – tunic – and that pulsing vein under the skin of his neck, and the urge to . . .   
   
Ray felt like some kind of lunatic, tasting people on his tongue when he passed them, hearing their heartbeats in his head. He couldn’t take it, walking down the hall in a daze, weak and staring and wanting to grab someone and satisfy that thirst so goddamn bad.  
   
This weird hush fell over the squad room when he came in, the kind that screamed out he’d been the primary topic of group conversation, and when heads turned his way up from the mounds of paperwork scattered around he knew what half of them were thinking. _Here comes the psycho cop who shot his ex-wife in a jealous rage like a dozen other psycho cops who made the papers around here._ They could bite him, and so could everyone else, because he knew what they were thinking too. _Here comes the psycho who almost broke Dewey’s neck yesterday._ They had no idea what that twisted cunt Victoria had done to him.  
   
“Took you long enough.” Welsh stood there waiting for him in the doorway of his office, and Ray went right to him without a word to anyone else, his stomach in some kind of Boy Scout double square knot despite himself after one look at the guy’s face. Welsh had seen it all, working the South Side all these years, but right now he wore this tight expression like someone had pulled a gun on him. There weren’t any I.A. guys in the office behind him, but Ray knew they’d been there, that they hadn’t left the building. They wouldn’t, not even on Saturday, because if they couldn’t make Ray Vecchio out to be a crooked drug-peddling back-alley murderer, why not pin him up as a jealous ex-wife attacking nutjob instead? Maybe blow the real Vecchio’s cover while they were at it.  
   
Welsh closed the door, which got Ray to forget about some guy he’d never met and pay attention.    
   
“The excrement’s up to the rafters, Detective. Guy went outside to smoke so we got a minute, but I.A. wants to talk to you.”  
   
Ray set his shoulders and advanced a step, this hard shell closing over him, that thing Fraser called a posture. Him? He called it surviving, you’re-not-gonna-push-me-around surviving. He’d done it since he was a kid. “I’m not talking. I don’t have to talk, and I’m not talking.” Not until he lawyered up he didn’t, which was all he’d come down here to say – magic words. He hated it when bad guys pulled that one on him, but those were his rights and he wasn’t the interrogator this time and had to remember that Miranda was his best friend now instead of the usual pain in the ass, and Christ who ever thought he’d need a lawyer?  
   
Welsh sighed and put an arm around him, the way he did when he would really rather pop him one but knew that wouldn’t help anything, steering Ray away from the door. Ray didn’t mind that from him, but the wrong thing, the sick thing, was that now that they were standing so close Ray looked over at him and stared at the throbbing vein on the guy’s neck above the collar of that crisp white shirt, thinking about . . .  
   
Jesus. Welsh was the closest thing he had to a dad right now. More importantly, Welsh was talking again.  
   
“Look, I’m trying to give you a heads-up here. Prints came back on the gun. Yours were the only ones they found. They’ve got probable cause, Detective.”  
   
Ray’s mouth opened and for a moment he just stood there baring his teeth, until he got his tongue unstuck from the roof of his mouth. He couldn’t believe this  
   
“Tell them to check again.”  
   
Welsh took his arm away and turned toward his desk. They both knew he didn’t have that kind of pull now. “I don’t like this anymore than you do, Kowalski,” he said, and meant it. Ray knew he meant it – he wouldn’t have used his real name otherwise – and that was something, so Ray let go of his anger with a sigh and put both hands on the desk, feeling like he needed something to help hold him up.    
   
“Sir, I didn’t do anything.”  
   
He trusted Welsh, trusted him with the truth – well except the humping Fraser part anyway – and wanted to say that he hadn’t even been anywhere near Stella Thursday night, that he hadn’t seen Stella since they’d called her in on that Warfield case right before Christmas. But then he’d have to explain about the club and Victoria and how he’d gone to Fraser, and that was the part where invoking your rights got real wise, because the minute you gave a name the investigation turned its eye in that direction and who knew how far Fraser would go for that woman. Ray wasn’t going to be the guy who ratted him out, or the guy who put Welsh in an awkward position. Welsh was a cop; if he found out that Fraser was harboring a fugitive, he’d have to bring him in too.  
   
“I believe you.” Welsh gave him that don’t-be-a-dink look, or maybe in this case it was more like don’t-say-anything-else. But then he leaned over the desk too and dropped his voice. “Here’s the thing, I got to talking with one of the 911 guys who took the call Thursday night. We’re dealing with a real sicko here. They say they found marks on Ms. Kowalski’s neck. Bite marks. Looks like whoever shot her was some kind of wannabe vampire or something.”  
   
Wannabe vampire. Ray’s hand almost slipped on the wood and he felt like he was about to fall, all the necks and wrists and heartbeats he’d seen and heard that day floating through his head, all mixed up with the heavy rhythm of Fraser’s pulse under his tongue. He kept telling himself he just had some weird disease, that vampires were only in books and stupid movies. Besides, he hadn’t gone anywhere near Stella’s apartment that night, just the club and the Consulate. Stella lived in another part of town entirely. But what if . . . what about those old films where the guy turned into a vampire or werewolf and didn’t remember going after his victims? What about those?  
   
“What about the DNA evidence?” His voice cracked on the last word. He was starting to sweat big time now, half a step away from doubling over and puking for real this time.   
   
Welsh straightened and shook his head. “Not back yet. But if I were you, I’d get myself a lawyer because as of this point, you’re officially a suspect.”  
   
Fuck. A suspect, a suspect with a blood drinking thing and a victim with teeth marks on her neck. Ray wished he could pick the desk up and throw it, or maybe he really wanted to sit in the corner with his face in his hands. He didn’t know. At that moment, he didn’t know anything anymore. Maybe he wished he still had his gun so he could shoot himself in the head. But for all he knew that wouldn’t do any good either. He could turn into some big walking undead freak with a gaping hole in his chest salivating for blood. Things could always get worse, wasn’t that how the saying went?  
   
Worse came in the form of a knock on Welsh’s door, and at that point Ray knew he’d be lucky if he got to spend the night at home instead of in a jail cell.   
   
**  
   
Certain impossible evidence could not go ignored. Well, Fraser supposed his concept of the impossible varied widely from the average individual’s given that his dead father regularly popped up from beyond the grave to dispense advice of varying usefulness and the fact that he had glimpsed the border between life and death with his own eyes. But facts were facts, all pointing to one distressing conclusion, and impossible or not facts were easier to muddle out than feelings of late.   
   
Feelings had become rather like a blizzard, blinding and sudden and fierce, and Fraser’s experience with blizzards more than made up for his inexperience with feelings. In a blizzard, the best course of action was to take shelter. Attempting to navigate through unfamiliar territory carried the fatal risk of becoming lost.   
   
So he took shelter. He took shelter in puzzling out Victoria’s note, in searching the city for marigolds and freshly laid cement with no luck so far. He took shelter in examining the odd things Ray had done since his encounter Thursday night. In a sense he took shelter in the numb overload of it all.  
   
First, there had been the bite itself, which seemed telltale enough in hindsight, and then there had been Ray’s craving for bloody meat and the strange aversion to garlic despite the fact that Fraser had seen Ray devour garlic fries and spaghetti with gusto on countless occasions. Both things might have been easily dismissed or countered by the fact that Ray had not suddenly refrained from moving about in the daytime, but then came the way Ray had flinched openly at the crucifix at Francesca’s throat, and when they had . . . during their incident in Ray’s kitchen, Ray’s mouth had latched onto his neck with unmistakable hunger.  
   
 _Incident_ . . . Fraser didn’t know what else to call it, since he couldn’t bring himself to use the word mistake. But he told himself that dwelling on it and constantly summoning the sensation of Ray’s body against his own only proved counterproductive and the important thing was the hunger itself. It might well have been all that drove Ray to respond as he had in the first place.  
   
Fraser actively hoped that was the case by the time he left Ray Saturday afternoon. Perhaps he should not have been so abrupt, but it had been difficult enough sitting in a vehicle with Ray knowing what he knew and having to face the fact that he was responsible without facing . . .   
   
He told himself Ray didn’t understand. That there was always hope someone might change their ways, that if you loved them you didn’t give up, ever. You had an obligation to protect them. And as for Ray Vecchio . . . Perhaps Ray Kowalski was right; he had been willing to overlook what he otherwise might have condemned, but . . .  
   
Fraser spent the rest of the evening thinking over what Ray had said, feeling both more ashamed and more confused, and when Sunday afternoon rolled around and his thoughts seemed no clearer Fraser decided to take solace in the library.  
   
He found several books on vampires, all of which pertained to the undead variety and therefore did not help in the least since Fraser was fairly sure Ray had not died. He found the usual theories linking vampire legends to mass murder and diseases such as rabies and porphyria, and the usual methods of driving a stake through the vampire’s heart or removing the head – options which made Fraser shudder on both Victoria’s and Ray’s account. He wanted a cure, not to harm them. If neither was dead then there had to be a cure.  
   
Of course, Victoria might well be dead. Stories abounded of lovers reaching out through supernatural means to take revenge upon unfaithful loved ones from beyond the grave. If Fraser’s father could reach him, then why not her? His stomach clenched at the possibility.   
   
The library had computer access, and Fraser was shocked to find a website claiming to be run by real honest-to-God vampires, claiming that the legendary aversion to sunlight amounted to nothing more than rubbish. But even that did not yield a cure. He did however find several detailed guides of mastering popular occult video games. Some listed the heavy ingestion of garlic as an antidote, which Fraser supposed might be worth a try.   
   
Francesca of all people found him poring over another book on a purported vampire virus similar in make-up to HIV and with a supposed vaccine. She wore her usual scrap of a skirt and sweater so small it must have been purchased in the children’s department, but when she perched on his table she neglected to cross her legs as usual and display more of her thighs than was humanly decent for a public venue. In fact, she appeared distracted.  
   
“Hi, Frase.” She pushed her hair out of her face and smiled faintly at him. “How’s Ray?”  
   
“Ray?” Fraser closed the book and set it aside, certain this virus nonsense was nothing more than an elaborate hoax. Francesca tilted her head to glance at the title, but thankfully did not inquire on his sudden interest in vampirism.  
   
“Yeah, I ran into him at the grocery store getting coffee filters. He seemed pretty out of it. He told me what happened at the station. I was just here doing some research for one my classes and I wondered if, you know, he was okay.”  
   
The station. So Ray hadn’t told her about their conversation in the car or that . . . Well, of course he wouldn’t. Fraser’s insides did their best to curl into a knot, and immediately he felt guilty. He had spent so much time over the past few days wading through that tumult of feelings that he had neglected to consider what might have happened to Ray at the precinct. He had focused on Ray’s . . . condition, wrestled with the frankness of Ray’s words in the car and the fact that he had been with Victoria at all, but he had not considered . . . He cleared his throat. Francesca was watching him and she was often more perceptive than she seemed. He didn’t want to worry her, or worse invite questions.  
   
“I take it the police decided to pursue their accusations further.” That could mean official charges, and the only comfort Fraser took at the moment lay in the fact that Francesca’s running into Ray indicated that he was not yet in jail.   
   
She nodded. “They _suspended_ him.” Her anger behind the word surprised him, given how she and Ray squabbled, but she immediately lowered her head in embarrassment and qualified herself. “Look, Ray’s, well . . . Ray, but he wouldn’t kill anyone.”  
   
“Indeed,” Fraser found himself nodding forcefully. He may have doubted Ray Vecchio on that account once, but not this Ray. It angered him too to see him so maligned. And suddenly his own tangled feelings seemed petty compared to Ray’s predicament – his entire predicament – and Fraser felt worse than he did for taking advantage of Ray in his kitchen. He had offered to help, and here had had behaved as though the investigation would stand still simply because he couldn’t make sense of his own head or keep his hands and his mouth to himself. If he had been more diligent over the weekend . . .  
   
He thanked Francesca and rose to put on his coat, torn between revisiting the scene of the crime for the third time and checking with the hospital for any small trace of helpful physical evidence, but when he left the library he found himself heading in another direction entirely.   
   
The city air smelled wet and polluted as Fraser made his way through the streets. It would rain tonight, but he didn’t bother hiring a taxi to return to the Consulate for an umbrella. It was one of those nights when he wouldn’t have minded being soaked to his skin. A faint drizzle had begun falling by the time he reached Ray’s apartment building and when he climbed the stairs and knocked softly on the door he thought he heard the faint patter of droplets on the roof. Fraser breathed in, only to inhale ammonia and fresh paint instead of the clean rain scent he had liked since he was a child.  
   
Ray looked even paler than before when he answered the door, and far from appearing luminous as he had days ago his blue eyes had a flat, despondent cast to them. He was barefoot, in a pair of old grey sweats and a black Chicago Cubs t-shirt, his hair flat in places and sticking out in others as though he had slept on it without bothering to gel or comb it when he got up again. That was worrying. Ray was fastidious about his hair. He no longer wore the gauze on his neck either – another undeniable piece of evidence Fraser had noted yesterday in the car. The mark Victoria had left had simply disappeared.  
   
“Fraser . . . “ Ray sounded even more tired than he looked, but he brightened to see him there, and Fraser wondered who else he had expected to come knocking on his door. The police with a search warrant perhaps. “Thought you’d uh . . .” Abandoned him? Fraser lowered his head, ashamed that all his pondering and confusion of late amounted to the fact that he had intended to avoid Ray the entire weekend. Given Ray’s current state, that now felt nothing short of cruel.   
   
Fraser cleared his throat and clasped his hands behind his back, forcing himself to straighten. He found it difficult to look Ray in the eye, and he didn’t know if it was because of what had happened Friday afternoon, Victoria, or . . . He opened his mouth to explain why he was here in something of an awkward rush.  
   
“I ran into Francesca and she told me what happened. I thought I’d see if there was anything I could do.”  
   
Ray blinked, and for a moment stood there as though uncertain if he’d heard correctly. Then he rubbed his mouth and got a hold of himself.  
   
“Yeah, come in.”  
   
Fraser followed him inside, doing his best to avoid looking at the kitchen where he had kissed and ground against Ray so savagely two days before. So sweetly, a dissonant voice in his head corrected, but Fraser pushed it aside. He tried instead to focus on the living room, greeted by the usual mess. The television was on, and from the rumpled blanket on the sofa and half empty mug on the coffee table, Fraser gathered that Ray had spent the weekend lying down. That was telling; Ray could not even be persuaded to stay in bed when he had the flu.  
.  
He scooped up the blanket and dumped it in a corner of the living room floor, sinking down onto the couch as though it would exhaust him to rise again. “Fraser, you want something, help yourself. I can’t look at anything edible right now.”  
   
Indeed. Fraser gathered as much by looking at him. The circles under his eyes and sluggishness of his movements told him Ray had not eaten or slept in at least twenty-four hours. But Fraser wondered if neglecting to eat had the same consequences on Ray’s body anymore.  
   
He was not unaccustomed to helping himself in Ray’s apartment, and so he went into the kitchen for a glass, a tingle passing through his body as his eyes fell on the fridge as if Ray were there pressed against him all over again. Heat flooded Fraser’s face and he tried instead to think of Victoria, but that only conjured up an image of Ray _and_ Victoria, sweating and rutting and . . . Fraser’s jaw clenched with sudden anger and he wished he were alone, but he fought it down and surprised himself by filling his glass with ice and picking up the bottle of whiskey on the counter. Ray, it seemed, made a habit of always keeping some form of alcohol accessible.   
   
“You okay there, Fraser?”  
   
Fraser snapped his head up in the middle of pouring. He hadn’t realized Ray was watching him, his stare so focused Fraser had to look away as he capped the bottle and set it aside. They both knew he never drank.  
   
“Fine, Ray,” he lied as he went back into the living room. He told himself it wasn’t a harmful lie given that turning their attention to the case was more important and that he really didn’t want to talk about himself, and so he sat down beside Ray on the sofa and changed the subject. “Have you gotten in touch with a lawyer?”  
   
The whiskey was strong when he sipped it, burning his tongue, and Fraser thought he imagined himself becoming instantly light-headed. Oddly enough, he liked the feeling and went for another swallow. He misjudged of course, and ended up coughing as the stuff scalded its way down his throat. Ray watched him, and abruptly laid his hand over Fraser’s on the glass, lowering it slowly from his mouth.   
   
“Take it easy.”  
   
Fraser wanted to yank his hand away, a strange shock pulsing through him at Ray’s touch that settled in his thighs. Ray certainly wasn’t cold as the legends would have it. In fact, the weight of his fingers seemed to burn through Fraser’s skin. He swallowed and tried to remind himself of the reason he had come.  
   
“Ray?”  
   
Ray’s lashes fluttered and he took his hand away, staring down at it in his lap a moment where it dangled between his knees. “Yeah. Yeah,” he said too quickly without looking at him. “Friend of Stella’s. She has this puff ball cat we used to watch when she went on vacation. Said she’d be there when I.A does their best to grill the snot out of me tomorrow.”  
   
Tomorrow. Fraser’s spirits plummeted. The police did not waste time, it seemed. He needed time if he would uncover evidence that would clear Ray of suspicion.  
   
“Well it’s encouraging she believes you.”  
   
Ray shook his head. “Nothing’s encouraging, Fraser.” He flicked off the TV and tossed the remote onto the coffee table with a minor clatter, turning to Fraser as though he had missed having someone to talk to. “She hasn’t heard anything, and my mom, she hasn’t called. The first twenty-four hours are supposed to be the most critical and what? It’s been three days now? Three days, and I haven’t heard anything, Fraser.”  
   
That was indeed worrying, but more so was the fact that Fraser had given very little thought to Stella herself during all this. Ray was right, he was selfish. He took another long drink and set his glass down on the table, and by now his light-headedness was far from imagined.   
   
“You can’t lose hope, Ray,” Fraser surprised himself by reaching out and laying his fingers against the back of Ray’s neck. The skin there was warm too, and it struck Fraser as odd that despite what he knew of Ray he didn’t feel any differently being close to him.  
   
He felt the tightening under Ray’s skin at his touch and caught the uncertain look in his eyes as Ray raised his head, and it occurred to Fraser that over the past few days Ray must have been at least ten times as confused and overwhelmed as he was. He swallowed against a surge of sympathy.  
   
“Yeah?” The word came roughly, and once again Fraser had to look away, certain that Ray was speaking of something else entirely. He let his hand fall and picked up his glass again.  
   
Ray let him drink in silence, and Fraser tried not to worry about his own sudden interest in alcohol. Altering one’s mind had a certain time-honored shamanistic value, and everyone had to veer away from their own patterns at one time or another. He did know that he was steadily becoming far too hot with his coat on. Liquor, it seemed, made the body very warm very fast. He became aware of Ray watching him as he unzipped the leather and shrugged out of it, and when Fraser turned to drape it neatly over the arm of the couch, Ray startled him by lifting his fingertips to one side of Fraser’s neck.  
   
He went still, a sharp current of nervousness rushing through his body. Ray’s fingers danced almost absently back and forth over his skin as though to brush away something imaginary, resting for a brief moment against the vein there. Fraser’s heart sped up and he found he couldn’t move, but Ray snatched his hand away in the next moment as though he had snapped out of a trance and pushed himself back several inches on the couch.  
   
“Piece of lint,” he muttered, sounding so shaky that Fraser turned to look at him. He was hunched over, his elbows on his knees, staring at the floor. Fraser swallowed. Why had she done this to him?  
   
He knew why, and perhaps that was what made him reach out again, resting a hand against Ray’s back. Ray’s body tightened once more under his touch and he all but quivered with the shaky breath he drew in. lifting his head and looking over at Fraser with a face both tense and pained.  
   
“Look, Fraser, I’m glad you’re here after everything, but uh . . .” He swallowed down the thickness in his voice. “You shouldn’t be around me right now. I’m not . . .”  
   
“Ray . . .” Fraser didn’t take his hand away. He wanted to tell him they would find a cure, that he wasn’t afraid. But the skin on his neck suddenly tingled, perhaps due some reaction from the liquor or perhaps the power of suggestion, and he took his hand away to rub at it.  
   
Ray’s expression went from miserable to transfixed. Fraser lowered his hand slowly, watching Ray’s lips part faintly and his eyes glaze over. He realized what a stupid thing he had done drawing attention to his neck, and started to apologize for . . . reminding him, he supposed the offense would be. But before he knew it Ray was biting into his lip and picking himself up from the sofa.  
   
“I can’t do this, Fraser.”   
   
Fraser watched him turn away, retreating into the bedroom. For a moment, he stared after him in bemusement, and then what should have been obvious hit him with a sense of irrational shock.   
   
Ray was hungry.   
   
It shouldn’t have shocked him. He knew what Ray was. He’d felt Ray’s eyes and his mouth on his neck before. Ray had a craving for blood now; of course this kind of proximity would spark hunger in him. Aside from which, Fraser doubted Ray had actually indulged his newfound need. After three days’ deprivation he had to be famished.   
   
A thirst, Victoria had called it, a thirst she hoped would land him in prison. Grimly, Fraser tried to imagine Ray wandering the night prowling for victims. He couldn’t, and he imagined Ray starving instead, wasting away to weakness. If Ray was not one of the undead as the legends went, then abstaining from blood-drinking had to have consequences comparable to failing to eat or perhaps receive a crucial medication. Or perhaps it was more like a wound requiring a constant transfusion. Fraser doubted physiological principles could be applied to this phenomenon, not when the vampire was traditionally looked upon as a source of evil draining the life force of those around it. In any event, he had no doubt the consequences could be fatal. With those circles under his eyes and evident weariness in his movements, Ray had certainly begun to appear ill.  
   
And it was all his fault. Victoria had done this to Ray out of revenge, because _he_ had wounded her, because he had let her down those ten years ago. She probably didn’t even believe he had intended to jump on that train with her. He had tipped off the police, after all. Fraser felt something sink inside him and before he thought better of it, he picked up his glass up from the table and drained it dry.  
   
He had to do something, because Ray was right, it was selfish to allow another to hurt someone dear to you to appease your own sense of obligation, and Ray needed his help now.   
   
There was only one thing he could do for the moment, and so Fraser set his empty glass down and rose from the couch. The dizziness hit him with the force of a snowstorm and he had to brace himself on the wall in order to keep his balance. He supposed that was somewhat pathetic after only one drink, but his lack of tolerance did not concern him at the moment, and grudgingly he admitted that some things were better done drunk than sober.  
   
He found Ray sitting on his unmade bed staring at his own hands, the bedroom lit by a single lamp on the nightstand. He did not seem to hear Fraser come in; he seemed lost in another world entirely.   
   
“Ray . . .” Fraser sat down behind him, laying a hand on his shoulder as lightly as he could so as not to startle him. It was encouraging that Ray didn’t grow tense this time. Then again, he seemed too tired for it, slowly raising his head and looking  at Fraser miserably.  
   
“They found marks on her throat, Fraser.” His voice was scratchy as though it hurt him to speak, and given that he was obviously referring to Stella Fraser was sure it did. It could not be an easy thing watching someone you love fight for their life. “I could have done it. I could have blacked out, drove over there in my car and done it. I almost did it to . . . You have no idea what’s wrong with me, Fraser.”  
   
“Ray . . .” Fraser’s hand tightened, ready to tell him that he would never in a million years believe Ray even remotely capable of such a thing, but the words abruptly died. Ray was looking at him, and Fraser didn’t know whether it was the liquor or some new power Ray’s existence gave him, but he suddenly felt paralyzed inside.  
   
Ray was without a doubt an attractive man. His features had an alluringly fine structure and his leanness and grace and vibrant energy lent him the aura of something exotic. The shine had returned to his eyes now, and Fraser stared transfixed a moment before he recognized it for what it was. Wetness. A lump rose in his throat to see Ray like this and his hand slid down over his back again, and next he knew Ray was leaning into him.  
   
His head dropped onto Fraser’s shoulder and he let out an unsteady breath as though relieved to be free of the burden of holding himself up. Fraser got one arm around him and then the other before he knew what he was doing, and Ray just sank against him.  
   
He was warm, and Fraser could feel his heart beating through his narrow chest in a steady rhythm that had nothing monstrous or inhuman about it, nothing to fear. He was such a pleasant weight against Fraser’s body that he wondered if he didn’t take a small perverse delight in Ray’s current state for the excuse to have him so close.  He had not forgotten his own poorly expressed jealousy of late and the revelation that he had for a long time now coveted Ray in a physical sense, and of course, Fraser could not remember the last time he had held someone. He remembered holding Victoria, in the cold, in the snow, but that only made him want to clutch Ray tighter and apologize a hundred times even though Fraser was sure he would never get the words out.   
   
But there was something he had to do. His hand came up, creeping to the collar of his flannel shirt, feeling for the buttons at his neck. There was no point in waiting, not while he already had Ray this close.  
   
He felt Ray shift against his shoulder as if he knew what Fraser was doing, turning his head to watch as Fraser slipped the top button free. He closed his eyes and heard Ray swallow hard as though trying to fight down something, and before Fraser could open his shirt another inch, Ray’s hand closed over his.  
   
“Fraser, don’t.”   
   
He pulled back enough for Fraser to see his face, and he looked nothing short of tortured. Indeed. It hurt to see Ray powerless to these cravings, but he had to understand that ignoring them did no good. Fraser reasoned with himself that this no different from donating blood to Ray in the event of injury, something he would certainly do without a second thought.   
   
“It’s all right, Ray.” He gently pried Ray’s hand away and opened the second button on his shirt.  “I know what she’s done to you and it’s my fault.”   
   
Ray shook his head violently. “No it isn’t, Fraser. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. Go psycho and all bets are –“  
   
“Ray . . .” Fraser stopped him the only way he could, and partly because he did not want to think about Victoria. His hand curled under Ray’s chin and he closed his eyes, leaning forward until his mouth found Ray’s.   
   
Fraser could not stop thinking of the incident in Ray’s kitchen, of how blind and thoughtless their drive for each other had been, of how Ray’s mouth had dropped to his neck as though piercing flesh and tasting fresh warm blood under his tongue was just another natural part of climaxing. Perhaps that was the only way to push Ray over the edge like that again, the only one way Fraser would be able to go through with this.  
   
Ray made a soft sound as their mouths met and let their lips sink together, and the sweetness of it, the warmth of it made Fraser dizzy enough to have had half a dozen drinks.   
   
“Fraser,” Ray drew back after a moment, his cheeks flushed and his breath coming faster. Still, he looked confused. “You know, and you still wanna . . .?” Fraser could only nod, though it didn’t seem to pacify Ray any. “You could have told me. Partners, Fraser.”  
   
Indeed, just as Ray could have told him about his other stolen gun – assuming he knew – and how the mark on his neck had mysteriously healed. But now was not that time for who should have done what. Fraser bent his head again and Ray didn’t resist him.  
   
Far from it, he moved closer until his warm thigh pressed against Fraser’s on the bed, and Fraser’s hand slid down, smoothing over Ray’s shoulder and moving up through his disordered hair, gently taking hold. Ray’s mouth opened under his, and Fraser let his tongue dart out, only for Ray to groan softly as Fraser pushed it into him. He had to arouse Ray enough to quiet all his protests and allow instinct to take over, had to wear down his judgment, had to . . . Fraser’s hand tightened in Ray’s hair. The wet heat of his mouth tasted wonderful.  
   
Ray’s hand was moving up his chest, strong and hot and curious through the layers of flannel and cotton. He found out the gap Fraser had made and unfastened another button, sending a surge of excitement through Fraser’s body at the thought of that hand against his bare skin. He closed his eyes and laid his fingers over Ray’s, slowly guiding them up to his neck. Ray groaned again and shifted in a way that told Fraser he was hard now. Another sharp pang of pleasure shot through Fraser to remember the feel of Ray’s erection pressing demandingly against him just the other day, and he arched his head back.  
   
Ray’s mouth fell away from his and Fraser closed his eyes. He could feel the pulse through Ray’s fingers where their hands were joined and he could feel Ray’s gaze, and then his warm fingertips stroking back and forth over the pulse at his neck. The touch was so light, so seductive that Fraser groaned as the blood rushed between his legs and stiffened him painfully.  
   
“Fraser . . .” Ray started to pull away again, but Fraser didn’t allow it. His hand tightened on the back of Ray’s hair and he pushed him closer, pressing Ray’s face against his neck.  
   
He went tense under Fraser’s hand, but his mouth opened, warm and wet against the sensitive skin. His lips trembled the urge to drink must have been so strong, and Fraser pushed the flannel of his shirt aside, letting it fall from his shoulder. Ray’s hand came up to stroke over his arm, either to sooth him or perhaps hold him in place. His tongue caressed the vein at Fraser’s neck pulsing nervously now, and then he was crawling around on the bed on his knees, moving behind him.  
   
Fraser squeezed his eyes tight, frozen while Ray’s hand snuck under his arm and pressed against his chest to steady him. He realized he was suddenly terrified. What if he became like Ray and Victoria too? What if Ray couldn’t stop himself from draining him dry? What if . . .?  
   
He felt teeth testing the skin, a shudder passing through him at the sharpness of it. There was no hiding it from Ray; Ray’s hand smoothed over Fraser’s chest, lingering over where his heart beat too wildly to disguise the fact that he was afraid, and Fraser heard what sounded like a sniffle behind him just as Ray took his mouth away.  
   
“I can’t do this.”  
   
Fraser swallowed. He had heard that too often from Ray over the past few days. He couldn’t stand seeing him so miserable, couldn’t stand the weight of the blame on his own shoulders. He had until tomorrow to find something in regards to Stella’s attack, but for now . . . Fraser tried to push some of his fear into a dark hole and bury it, opening his eyes and focusing on the room around him, lamplit and innocuous cluttered with Ray’s clothes on the floor. Ray hadn’t changed no matter what he had become, and the Ray he knew wouldn’t hurt him.   
   
He reached behind him, curling his fingers against Ray’s cheek and leaning back until he felt the hot touch of his mouth again. His other hand found Ray’s on his chest and held onto it, and for some reason the courage he needed to go through with this wasn’t hard to find now. “Things will only get worse if you don’t, Ray,” he murmured, turning his head just enough to look at him. Ray’s face was pinched and his eyes were wet and disturbed. Fraser stroked his cheek and gently tightened his grip on Ray’s hand, and without thinking he began guiding it down to his lap. “Drink, Ray.”  
   
Ray let out a sharp breath when he felt the hardness straining between Fraser’s legs. He bit down, and Fraser heard him swallow, heard his hesitation and need before he felt the piercing sting of Ray’s teeth breaking skin.  
   
That skin was suddenly on fire, and Fraser’s cock was on fire too, twitching when Ray’s hand lightly took hold of him through his jeans, growing harder with the pressure. The piercing at his neck turned to tearing and Fraser tried to hold in a cry of pain. Ray’s free hand came to the front of his shirt, starting on the buttons just as he began to rub at him through his jeans, and suddenly Ray was the one seeking to arouse him to distraction while he peeled away Fraser’s shirt and started to suck.  
   
It was not like giving blood at all. It was . . . it was penetration of a sort. Ray’s teeth forced their way into him leaving a ring of pain around the puncture wounds he made and Fraser was caught between bracing himself and wanting to surrender entirely to the pressure of Ray’s hand against his erection and the heat of his fingertips slipping inside his undershirt. His head swam with liquor and arousal and the sense of danger, thrilling in its own way.   
   
Warm fingers touched the bare skin of Fraser’s stomach just as he felt his own hot blood start to trickle out of him. His body twitched with the overload of sensation and he grunted against the pressure of Ray’s mouth at his neck, burning him, sucking greedily in muffled wet sounds. His body sank against Ray’s, hoping that would lessen the pain, and it did. Ray’s hands moved over his chest with a strange gentleness – protectiveness, Fraser thought – and the fingers unbuttoning his jeans and tugging down his zipper did so as though determined to dull the sting with pleasure, and suddenly it didn’t feel unnatural at all that Ray was sucking the blood from him. Fraser saw a kind of grim beauty in it, a giving of himself in an intimate and life-sustaining way only mothers usually knew.  
   
Ray drank less than Fraser thought he would, and when he pulled away the fire in his skin doubled without the wetness of Ray’s mouth to soothe it. Fraser realized he was breathing hard and he did groan aloud in pain when Ray took his hand from between his legs, and before he knew it Ray had untangled himself from around him and was sinking down, curling up against the pillow with his back to him.  
   
Fraser could hear him breathing, labored and obviously shaken, and no wonder. His mouth was stained red and when Fraser turned to glance at himself he saw that a trickle of scarlet droplets ran from his neck down onto the shoulder of his undershirt. The wound Ray had made throbbed terribly, but he didn’t feel any more light-headed with the blood loss than he had a few moments ago.  
   
He felt the ache between his legs stronger than anything else. His jeans were open and the cool air made a poor substitute for the pressure of Ray’s warm palm. He _throbbed,_ and satisfying the wild demand in his body was all Fraser wanted at the moment when he should have retreated to the bathroom to clean the wound Ray had made.  
   
Ray was aroused too. Fraser could hear it in his breathing, see it in the flush to his skin that had been pale before. The way his hands had moved over him, the way he had squeezed at . . . Fraser swallowed, wishing Ray had not stopped just short of wrapping his fingers around the naked length of him. Indeed, Fraser’s cock strained to get free of his boxers and experience Ray’s warm touch again, and Fraser was forced to wonder if it had something to do with the bite, if a vampire’s kiss had the power to spark lust in the victim, if perhaps he wasn’t to blame after all for losing control of himself with Ray the other day.  
   
It hurt to see Ray lying there so spent and . . . distressed by what he had done. Fraser instinctively stretched a hand out to him, resting it gently on his hip. “Ray . . .?” He leaned over him. “Are you all right?”  
   
Ray slowly turned to look up at him, his tongue sweeping out and catch the stray droplets on his lower lip, and despite himself a sharp sensation shot from the pit of Fraser’s stomach to the tip of his cock as he did so. Faint horror entered Ray’s face when his eyes fell on the bloody smears on Fraser’s neck. He snatched his gaze away, swallowing hard.   
   
“Fraser, you want me to get you some bandaids or something? Wanna lie down?”  
   
“I’m fine, Ray,” Fraser shook his head, fine in the sense that he felt no strange blood cravings of his own or unusual changes in his body. But then he too looked down, not at the blood leaking onto the front of his shirt, but at his lap, where his by now painful erection tented the white cotton of his boxers.  
   
Ray followed his eyes with a half-hearted “huh.”  He ran a hand over the space beside him, wrinkled bedcovers and all, and offered almost shyly. ‘You can come here if you want.”  
   
Fraser held his breath. At the moment he wanted nothing more, and before he knew it he was stretching out next to Ray on the bed. Ray’s hands slid nervously up the bare skin of his arms and then Ray’s mouth was under his again, soft and open. Fraser could taste himself there – salty and sweet and metallic – and strangely enough that only served to further invigorate him.  
   
His hand moved tentatively over the curve of Ray’s shoulder down to the muscle of his forearm, and Ray pulled back a little at his hesitation, pressing a hand to Fraser’s chest. “Fraser . . .?” He must have been more nervous than Fraser realized; his voice wasn’t even steady. “Uh . . . do whatever you want, okay? Fair’s fair.”  
   
Fraser started to say that Ray didn’t owe him anything, that this nightmare foisted upon Ray was his fault in the first place, but he ended up closing his eyes and leaning down for Ray’s mouth again. It wasn’t as though he wanted to do anything that would hurt him and Ray was hardly uninvolved in the proceedings. Far from it, he was arching his back quite eagerly.  
   
But after a moment, he turned his head away, leaving Fraser to lick his lips where the wet pressure of Ray’s mouth had been. “Don’t trust myself,” he told the pillow, and Fraser nodded. The blood on his neck was still wet and the last thing he wanted to do was taunt Ray by forcing him to look at it. He didn’t want to let go to get up and cover the wound either, so he let Ray roll away from him onto his side, curling up against his back.  
   
Much had been written about the seductive powers of the vampire and Ray was no exception. He suddenly seemed a hundred times more alluring lying there with his gold half-spiked hair and lean limbs stretched over the bed. Fraser felt a sudden hunger to touch him without the barrier of clothing. His hands slid under Ray’s black t-shirt, gliding over the hot skin of Ray’s belly where he felt the muscles tighten, and then slowly creeping upward until his fingertips found the silky skin of Ray’s nipples. He took one between his thumb and forefinger, rolling carefully until it hardened and Ray gave a little shudder, choking out, “Fraser . . .”  His eyes closed, and he squirmed impatiently.   
   
Fraser clenched his teeth at the hot weight of Ray’s backside grinding into his already burning erection. He felt the backs of Ray’s thighs too, pressing against his own, warm and strong through his sweatpants, and he thought that if he didn’t find release soon there was a high probability he would lose his mind.  
   
He slid one leg across Ray’s hips, dragging himself onto Ray’s back and pressing him into the mattress. Ray groaned at the pain of having his own erection crushed against the bed, but he didn’t resist. On the contrary, he wedged a hand underneath himself to untie his sweatpants, wriggling his hips to tug them off with the weight of Fraser on top of him. His movements sent maddening shocks of pleasure through Fraser’s groin, and before he knew it, Fraser was helping him, his fingers brushing the smooth skin of Ray’s hips as he got his boxers out of the way as well. His own jeans followed – not nearly as difficult a feat – and they both let out a heavy breath when hot skin met hot skin.  
   
Fraser braced himself with both hands on the mattress, sliding up a little so their bodies fit together better. Perhaps Ray’s skin was no longer hot, but cool with sweat, and Fraser wanted nothing more than to rub himself against him. He moved his hips experimentally to do just that, only for Ray to let out something like a giggle at the tickle of his pubic hair against his backside.     
   
He squirmed again, only for Fraser’s cock to slip between Ray’s thighs. The sensation was so thrilling his mouth settled on the slightly damp skin at the back of Ray’s neck. He lapped at the sweat there, his tongue making idle circles. Ray let out a small sound, his thighs closing tight around Fraser’s erection, and Fraser couldn’t help himself; he thrust against that sweat-slick muscular heat, the head of his cock brushing against Ray’s balls.  
   
“Fraser . . .” Ray’s hand came up to clutch the pillow case. He licked at his lips and suddenly his thighs weren’t squeezing Fraser so tightly. They were sliding open, welcoming more of him, and Ray twisted to look at him impatiently over his shoulder. “God, just . . . just put it in me.”  
   
Fraser didn’t know what to say, but Ray was already stretching an arm out to fumble for something in the nightstand drawer. He handed Fraser a square condom packet and a tube of lubricant, and Fraser thought the blush creeping up from the back of his neck would scorch him alive.  
   
Well, it wasn’t as though he had never used a condom before, and far from protesting the idea his body was thrumming with excitement that Ray would allow this, that Ray apparently saw nothing wrong with it as Fraser had assumed he would. He remembered the sense of intimacy as Ray had drunk from him moments ago and how he had wanted to hold onto it. The thought of being inside him . . .  Fraser tore the paper packet and quickly rolled on the latex, and then he was uncapping the lubricant and spreading it onto himself, inhaling sharply at his own touch. He’d read enough to know that more preparation than that was needed, and so he squeezed more onto his hand and settled his mouth on Ray’s shoulder, sucking gently while he slipped a finger between Ray’s cheeks and gently worked it into him.  
   
Ray was tight, and instantly he thrust backward with a little grunt, as though it shocked him to be touched there. It was rather endearing really. “Come on, Fraser,” he panted, and obligingly Fraser took his hand away, sliding it under Ray instead and pressing his palm flat to his belly, lifting him up onto his hands and knees.  
   
Ray’s back arched and Fraser felt the tightness in his legs as he braced himself against the mattress. He crouched over him, fingers holding tight to Ray’s hips as he let the tip of his erection press up against Ray’s body and pushed forward.  
   
Heat. So much heat, and so tight. Fraser laid his cheek against the back of Ray’s shoulder and pushed a little more, and surprisingly Ray opened to him without effort, his body shaking just a little as though the pains of entry were far more fleeting than expected. Fraser sank down onto his elbows, sliding inside Ray all the way, moving his hips on instinct because that was the only thing he could do. He went slowly at first in deep, controlled strokes, pulling back almost entirely just for the pleasure of sinking in all the way again and feeling Ray close around him, hot and squeezing and . . . wonderful. He heard Ray groan and soaked up the sound. His hips sped up with it and suddenly he felt Ray start to shake all over again, panting hard underneath him.  
   
   
“Fraser . . .” He gulped and rocked back on his knees, urging him faster until Fraser heard the bed creak softly beneath them. His hand trailed down, bold and uninhibited and groping over Ray’s hard cock and his balls, suddenly fascinated with them. He squeezed and stroked and smeared the wetness into the tip of Ray’s cock with his thumb, licking at the damp skin between Ray’s shoulders all the while. Ray grunted each time Fraser thrust into him, until he finally curled his fingers tight into the pillow and choked out, “Fraser, I’m gonna . . .”  
   
Ray came in violent shudders and a hot flood of liquid spilling over Fraser’s fist. Fraser let go with him, his own orgasm hitting him in hard spasms, shaking him from his spine to the tips of his toes. He ended up slumping onto Ray’s back a panting mass of sweat and dizziness, and then he was rolling off him, staring up at the bedroom ceiling that seemed to be floating with a flurry of stars.  
   
His breathing slowly returned to normal and the bite on his neck stung tenfold as the adrenaline began to fade.. He risked a look over at Ray, finding him on his back as well, his t-shirt covering him halfway to his knees now while his sweats and boxers lay at the foot of the bed where he must have kicked them off. His breath came in raged gulps and his nose and forehead shone with sweat.   
   
“Ray?” Fraser noted the way he was staring at the ceiling, as though he didn’t know where else to look. He remembered what Ray had said about not trusting himself with the blood still fresh on Fraser’s neck and wondered if this would not be a good time to make use of the bathroom. After all, his cock was soft now and the latex around it felt sticky and uncomfortable. But he had to ask, “Are you all right?”   
   
Ray turned his head to look at him – roll his eyes rather – and Fraser was relieved to see some of his characteristic irritation. “Fraser, I just drank your blood and let you screw my brains out. You gotta give me a minute here.”  
   
A minute indeed. Some of the euphoria faded, and Fraser wondered whether Ray would view what they had done as a mistake tomorrow. He was fairly sure that it wouldn’t have happened without his new appetite to arouse both of them the way it did, much like the unique set of circumstances that had driven Inspector Thatcher to fling herself at him during that incident on the train, never to be repeated. He did not know whether he was disappointed or relieved, but he got up to give Ray the minute he required.  
.  
It occurred to Fraser as he wrapped the condom in a generous wad of toilet paper and disposed of it that once again they had made little in discussing the case. He still had to visit the hospital and figure out something before tomorrow afternoon. With a sigh, he wiped away the blood on his neck and shoulder with a washcloth, cleaned the marks with some hydrogen peroxide he found in the medicine cabinet, and covered it with a large adhesive knee bandage he found in a near empty box. He certainly couldn’t go about investigating with a wound like that in plain sight.  
   
Ray was asleep when Fraser came back into the bedroom. He’d thrown the covers back and pulled the sheet up to his waist, his arms folded over it. For the first time since the attack at the nightclub, he even appeared halfway peaceful, and so Fraser resolved not to wake him and let him sleep for a while. He needed sleep.  
   
For his part, Fraser took himself into the living room, slipping back into his flannel shirt and settling on the sofa. A glance at Ray’s curious neon clock told him it was too late to make it to the hospital – that would have to wait until first thing in the morning – and with the whiskey in him Fraser didn’t quite trust himself to leave the safety of the apartment yet. He ventured into the kitchen with the intention of flushing it out of his system with generous amounts of water, flipping on the television.   
   
He settled on a program about rare South American jungle snakes and the myths behind the much-feared Anaconda, and just when he became engrossed, the phone rang.  
   
Fraser hurried back into the kitchen to answer it before it woke Ray, hoping against hope that it was Ray’s mother with encouraging news on Stella or Lieutenant Welsh informing them that the real attacker had been found. “Detective Ray Vecchio’s residence,” he said into the receiver. “This is Constable Benton Fraser.”   
   
He waited. There was a pause, a slow breath, and then, “Ben . . .?”  
   
Her voice. That beautiful voice. Nothing could have prepared him for it. Fraser sank onto one of the bar stools feeling as though someone had shot him. Up until now he had continued to hope the note in his office was nothing more than an elaborate prank or at the very least further evidence that he was losing his mind, but her voice was real enough. Fraser clutched the handset with his free hand and before he knew it, the most irrelevant question of all the hundreds of questions he should have asked came out of his mouth.  
   
“How did you get this number?”  
 


	4. Chapter 4

Ray dreamed him and Fraser were cowboys living in some farmhouse out in the old west, with the big stupid hats and the rifles and a dusty wood floor. Everything seemed normal enough until he bent to throw some wood on the fire and Fraser came up and put his arms around him from behind, whispering something about why don't they take a break and lie down together in front of the hearth. And instead of freaking out or demanding to know what the hell Fraser thought he was talking about or when the two of them had started playing house, Ray just turned around, hot and tingly all over, and next thing he knew they started kissing, going at it like a couple of horny freaks.   
   
A knock at the door snapped them out of it. All of a sudden Ray had a rifle in his hands, yelling that no way in hell was the sheriff taking him to jail alive, and Fraser just stood there, cucumber calm, telling him to trust him.   
   
Ray woke up. No farmhouses or rifles, just his same old bedroom. He was tangled in the sheets and his sweats were on the floor, along with his boxers, and there was something sticky all over his stomach that felt a lot like . . . Fuck.   
   
First he thought he'd had some kind of wet dream about him and Fraser and the fire, and that was more than enough to send his heart racing into panic mode, because what kind of guy had wet dreams about his partner? But then he tried sitting up and felt this _sting_ in his ass, saw the condoms thrown around in the nightstand drawer, and realized things were a whole lot worse than that. Worse as in, Fraser drank a whole glass of whiskey, got Ray to drink his blood, and then fucked him until they both about had an asthma attack.   
   
Fraser wasn't there, but the bathroom light was on across the hall, and since when did Fraser leave lights on? He was the one-man energy conservation police straight from the wild north where they probably still used kerosene instead of electricity. Ray got up and left the bedroom, afraid of finding Fraser passed out somewhere on the floor from blood loss. His heartbeat wasn't slowing down any, and why couldn't everything he remembered before falling asleep just be part of some sick fantasy and not real at all? What kind of guy volunteered to let you drink his blood? Unhinged didn't even come close to covering that one.   
   
Ray rubbed a hand over his face. Probably the same kind of guy who went along with it and then got so turned on he rolled over and decided it was time to make some butt porn. He felt like some kind of serial killer, the kind who got off on eating people. What, was he going to start video-taping the whole thing next and stick his victims in the freezer? Maybe this wasn't even a vampire thing. Maybe he was just crazy. Working the South Side, he'd seen crazy. Maybe he'd finally snapped.   
   
He peeked into the living room, but Fraser wasn't there either. The TV was on, which meant Fraser had definitely been there before, because Ray remembered turning it off earlier, but his leather coat wasn't draped over the couch anymore, and maybe it was time to face the fact that Fraser had bolted just like the last time.   
   
The last time . . . as in, now they'd done this more than once. And it wasn't just humping and making out anymore either; it was the real thing, home base, all the way. Complete with kinky blood drinking. And maybe Ray didn't feel so starved and weak anymore now that Fraser had "fed" him, but right now he couldn't even begin to handle the fact that they were having sex. He couldn't deal with any of it, and maybe he didn't have to just yet. Maybe he could take things one minute at a time until tomorrow. Focus. Get his head together.    
And maybe getting fucked felt pretty good. Ray could admit to that. No one had told him there was a spot inside a guy that made you feel like warm melted butter and turned up the voltage two hundred percent when you finally came. But the fact was, Fraser was big, and Ray knew he'd be feeling sore and stretched down there for a long time. He didn't care about that, because Fraser's neck had to hurt a whole lot worse, and for just one minute when Fraser was going crazy inside him making him lose his mind everything had felt right again. Perfect. All better.     
   
Someone pounded on the door, and for a minute Ray got his hopes up, thinking maybe Fraser had just gone for take-out, but Fraser was too polite to bang on the door like that, and a high-pitched voice called, "Frase? You in there?"   
   
Frannie. Damn it. Ray glanced down at himself, almost forgetting that he didn't have any pants on. The woman had the worst timing, he swore to God.   
"Hang on a minute!"   
   
He ran to get his sweats and rub a washcloth over his stomach to wipe some of the dried jizz away because a guy just couldn't answer the door like that, and behind him he heard her calling, "Well hurry up."   
   
She sounded panicked, and fuck she wasn't the only one. Where the hell was Fraser? What if biting him had turned him into a blood drinking freakshow too and he was out roaming the streets looking for a late-night snack? But maybe Ray could take comfort in one thing. He remembered drinking Fraser's blood, which meant that if he'd gone after Stella he would have remembered that too.  
   
One thing at a time, he told himself, one thing at a time.  
   
Ray raced back to the door before Frannie beat it down. Maybe the woman really should become a cop.  She had her fist in mid-air when Ray opened it, clutching a dark grey scarf to her neck with her free hand. Her face was white and her eyes were huge, and with the way her mascara had run she looked like she'd been punched a couple of times, and that kind of thought really didn't help his mood any.   
   
"Frannie, you okay?"  
   
Stupid question, because she sure didn't look it. She looked shaken. A wet umbrella hung from her arm, which brought Ray's attention to the fact that it was raining outside, but he didn't care about that. Her stockings were torn, and suddenly he got this awful feeling in his gut.   
   
She came inside and threw her umbrella on the floor like it weighed twenty pounds, but she held onto that scarf like the rest of her clothes were gone and it was the only thing covering her.    
   
"Is Fraser here? I uh . . . I . . ." She kept looking around, like she expected someone to come out and grab her, and whoever it was better not be stupid enough to come here.   
   
Ray closed the door. "No Fraser. Don't know where he is. What's going on?"   
   
"What do you mean, you don't know?" Her voice went higher, about three steps from losing it. "Aren't the two of you like joined at the hip?"   
   
He bit his tongue. He didn't want to answer that. The subject of him and Fraser? Not a good road to go down at the moment. Besides, he wanted to know what was wrong with her, like now.   
   
"Look, Frannie, I don't have him stashed away in a closet, I promise, now what the hell's going on?"   
   
For a minute she just stood there nodding to herself, closing her eyes and whispering, "Okay, okay," like she was trying to pull herself together. Then she looked up and pushed her hair out of her face in that nervous habit she had.   
   
"I was throwing some garbage outside and someone uh . . . someone attacked me, and . . ."   
   
"Attacked?" Ray's blood started boiling. "What do you mean attacked? By a guy?" He looked down at her little strip of a miniskirt and wondered for the hundred-and-twentieth time why the hell she had to go out alone at night wearing stuff like that, and he didn't want to hear the bullshit about fair either. A guy should be able to leave his door unlocked without getting robbed clean. Some people just didn't give a fuck about fair.   
   
Frannie shook her head, and damn it she was white-faced. "No, not a guy," she snapped, except her heart wasn't in it. "A woman, okay? She grabbed me and . . ."    
   
She yanked her scarf away, and half her neck was covered in blood. Ray couldn't help it; his mouth watered. The blood was fresh too, and wet, and he couldn't stop staring. It was like getting a hard-on when a woman took off her shirt; the urge to grab Frannie and lick up the rest of that blood just came on so naturally.   
   
Deep breath. He had think straight here. "Why didn't you call . . ." The police, he was going to say, but he was the police. "911. Why didn't you call 911? You need to go to the hospital, Frannie."   
   
"So what, she can come back for seconds while I'm waiting for the ambulance?" Frannie sat down on the couch with a heavy breath. She really did look at the end of her rope. Her hands were shaking, and she touched her neck and looked at the blood on her fingers with this horrified expression. Ray looked away, wishing she wouldn't draw his attention there like that. "She did it with her _teeth,_ Ray," she told him when her hand fell. "No one else was home."  
   
Yeah. He could see the teeth marks on her neck now that the edge of her red mock turtleneck sweater had slipped down some, and he got the rest too. She was scared and didn't want some stupid paramedic kid working on her who'd probably wet himself if he knew the truth; she wanted Fraser, kind of like him Thursday night. Except Frannie didn't go rolling over begging for it up the ass. And maybe things would have gotten a whole lot less complicated if he'd gone to the hospital in the first place.   
   
"Okay, okay," Ray sat down with her, trying to keep his head focused. It wasn't like he didn't see assaults all the damn time. "You get a look at this chick? Did she say anything?"   
   
"No. Nothing . . . She uh . . . " Frannie took another deep breath, straightening her hair again. "She had dark hair and that's . . . that's all I saw."   
Dark hair. Ray went cold all over. He knew it, fucking Victoria. She must have seen Frannie with Fraser at the library, and didn't that just eliminate the need to wonder why the hell Victoria would go after Frannie. Ray knew that wasn't the beginning either. Right now, he knew that damn well.   
   
What the hell was he supposed to do? Victoria had her eye on Frannie and who knew whether she meant to leave her alive or not. Frannie had to take this to the police, because no way should Victoria get away with this and you couldn't just leave a vampire on the loose to go around attacking people. But if they went to the station shouting Victoria Metcalfe how did he know the world wouldn't come crashing down around Fraser in the form of police attention? For all Ray knew Fraser could be with her right now, believing some bullshit story about where she'd been tonight and swearing to protect her in his rock-headed crazy ass Mountie way. Ray absolutely did not want to hurt Fraser, especially after the guy had practically saved his life letting him drink his blood.   
   
He looked at Frannie, bleeding and freaked out. She didn't deserve this. No way should Victoria go free. And why did Fraser have to leave instead of trying to marry him or talk things over or one of those other things you'd expect him to do after sex? What, Victoria got his lifetime protection and Ray got left high and dry with this mountain-sized dilemma over how to see justice served without betraying Fraser? How was that fair? This was exactly the shit he'd been talking about yesterday in the car, putting the psychopath over the innocent victims just because Fraser banged her a couple of times.   
   
First they had to stop the bleeding though. Ray got up from the couch and got a clean towel from the laundry basket he’d left in the hall outside the bathroom and handed it to her.    
   
"Look, Frannie, why don't you just put some pressure on that while I c. . ." His eyes dropped to her neck again, and god he just wanted to see if he could suck anymore warm wet blood from the wound there. That was the worst part, how was he supposed to keep her safe here if he might just end up hurting her? It wasn't like he could send her home all alone with some jealous nutcase on her tail.    
   
He went into the bedroom, grabbing the phone. Maybe Fraser had Victoria stashed away at the Consulate. That's where he took women in trouble. Maybe he was getting ready to stage another one of those international extradition incidents. That sounded like Fraser, and maybe that didn't count as harboring a fugitive on account of the international thing, but it couldn’t end well either way when the police finally got her, and maybe the best Ray could do was give him fair warning.   
   
He got the message machine when he dialed the Consulate, Constable Benton Fraser welcome to Canada blah blah blah. Why couldn't the damn dog answer the phone? He knew how to do everything else.   
"Fraser . . .?" Ray waited for the beep. "Fraser, you there? Pick up." No answer. Shit. "Look, I got Frannie here. Victoria's attacked her. I gotta take her in. She's bleeding on my couch and I . . . I don't have much choice, if you get me. If you see Victoria, stay the hell away from her and don't help her. I repeat _do not_ help her, Fraser, because I can't predict what'll go down once the police get a hold of this. Fraser?" No one. "Fraser, come on!"   
   
He waited, and slammed the phone down, hoping Fraser had just gone to the bathroom and would check his messages in a few minutes. But maybe Ray didn't have to give Victoria's name just yet, at least not until Fraser contacted him. Maybe he could stall for a little time. He threw on a sweatshirt and snatched his car keys from the dresser.   
   
"Did you find him?"  
   
Frannie looked so damn hopeful clutching that towel to her neck when he came back into the living room, like she didn't need stitches or antibiotics or painkillers to make her better, just Fraser. Ray lowered his head, and the guilt kind of crept up on him. All she wanted was to make Fraser bad lasagna, rub his neck, and live out some perfect fairy-tale fantasy, and here he was trying to act like her brother while trying to hide the fact that he was walking stiff because Fraser had fucked him but good. He felt like some kind of backstabbing bitch, because who else went after the guy their sister liked? And he felt like maybe he should apologize or something, but he couldn't control how this stuff played out, and it wasn't like he would hate Frannie if she had a fling with Stella. And that was a weird thought.   
   
"Nah, no luck," Ray shook his head after what felt like forever. "But we gotta take you to the hospital. My phone's on. Maybe he'll leave a message or something." He hoped so, because he wanted to keep Fraser out of this mess about as badly as he wanted to see Victoria thrown in jail.   
   
**  
   
They had to drive halfway across town in the rain to get to the hospital, because Frannie didn’t want to go with the crackheads and the drive-by victims, which meant the Consulate wasn’t that far out of the way. Frannie didn’t look good – she sat there huddled in the passenger seat like she wanted to hide under a bed someplace – but if she’d made it this far without passing out from blood loss Ray didn’t think a five minute detour would hurt her. Besides, this was Fraser they were talking about; her face practically lit up like a Christmas tree when he took the turn-off.  
   
“You think he’s at the Consulate?” She didn’t even bother disguising the hope in her voice. _He._ Ray rolled his eyes. Must be nice having women talk about you like you were the only guy on the planet. But maybe Fraser was the only guy who mattered right now. No, not maybe, Ray admitted to himself. No maybe about it.  
   
“It’s worth a shot. Guy needs a cell phone. I ought to buy him for Christmas.”  
   
Frannie snorted. “Yeah, like they know what to do with those in the tundra.” And okay maybe Frannie was bouncing back a bit to her old self. That was good, but he didn’t need the reminder that Fraser was going back to Canada someday. It made everything he was doing now feel kind of pointless.  
   
Fraser’s office faced the street on the ground floor, but the lights were off. The window was open though, and Diefenbaker must have seen the car, because his big white shape leapt out and he started bounding toward them in the rain like he hadn’t seen them in three years. It had to be a good sign that the dog was still here, because Fraser wouldn’t have left him behind if he’d run off with Victoria somewhere. Then again, he didn’t seem to care much that she’d actually put a bullet in him the last time, so maybe he would heave him, who knew? You needed fucking Notredamus to predict a guy in love.  
   
Ray got this tight feeling in his gut when he got out of the car to let Dief in the back, because this was where the whole mess started, with that argument with Fraser that sent him to the club in the first place. But too late for wallowing about how he shouldn’t have done this or that; Ray saw Turnbull standing guard out front, getting soaked without an umbrella, not that Mounties cared about stuff like that. The more masochistic the better. Why else would they stick around with the Ice Queen running the place?  
   
“Hey, Turnbull!” Ray wasn’t dumb enough to get out of the car and leave Frannie alone. He’d seen enough horror movies to know that the monster always got the victim the second you let them out of your sight for some stupid reason, so he just yelled from the parking lot with cold raindrops sliding down the back of his neck. God he hated that. “Fraser in there? He bring anyone with him?” Turnbull just stood there like a big red block of dumb Canadian wood, and Ray got it, statues didn’t talk. He’d tried to crack Fraser out here dozens of times, only this time wasn’t a joke. “Come on, Turnbull, Fraser could be in real trouble here. He in there? Yes or no?”  
   
Silence. Nothing. Ray slammed his fist against the roof of the car. Fucking Mounties.   
   
“I don’t think he’s been here.” Frannie stared in the direction of Fraser’s office like she expected him to come out in a cape or a superhero outfit or something. No dice there either. Ray got in the car and slammed the door shut with Dief in the back. They didn’t have all night to wait and he was getting wet standing out there in the rain. Maybe Dief could help him track Fraser down later.  
   
Luckily, Emergency wasn’t crowded when they got there. This was the good side of town. E.R. here didn’t see anything but old guys with heart attacks and bored housewives overdosing on sleeping pills. A chick with bite marks on her neck didn’t seem to faze anyone though. The triage guy who put the little plastic bracelet on Frannie’s wrist assumed she’d been bitten by a pit bull and sent her back with two guy nurses into one of the little exam rooms.  
   
They let Ray go with her since they thought he was her brother, and it took three tries for them to get Frannie’s story straight. One guy startled going on about rape kits while the other looked at her like she was something out of a lesbian porno. It didn’t take them long to get with the swabs and the pictures though, and sending someone to notify the police. Ray wished he could pull out his badge and tell them to watch it with the evidence, because there was more than possible diseases on those swabs, but he was on suspension and couldn’t do a damn thing but sit there and hope no one screwed up because he wanted Victoria taken down.    
   
They cleaned the wound and told Frannie she’d need stitches to minimize any scarring. She just nodded mutely like the whole thing overwhelmed her, but didn’t really lose it until the doctor came in with the big needle for the local anesthetic, and when they started on the actual sutures she surprised the hell out of him by grabbing his hand. Ray just sat there letting her do her best to break his fingers even though she probably didn’t feel anything from the needle. He’d been through this dozens of times. Wait until they started on the tetanus shots, which they could hurry up with, because he wanted to go out and look for Fraser some more now that he had the dog.  
   
They were almost done when a commotion started up in the empty waiting room outside. Ray heard footsteps in the hall, and then some short guy in a suit busted into the room with two Uniforms in tow. His badge read Henry Taft, Internal Affairs, and Ray’s stomach did a flip-flop. What the hell was an I.A. guy doing working at eleven o’clock on a Sunday night?  
   
“You know anything about this, Kowalski?” The guy tried to look intimidating blocking the doorway, like he wasn’t doughy and beady-eyed and about fifty years old, not to mention an idiot. Ray wasn’t in the mood for this. He felt like punching him right off.  
   
“You got the wrong guy. I’m Vecchio.”  
   
Henry got this stupid look on his face when he realized that he’d blown a major cover in front of three strangers, but he tried to play it off like Ray was just giving him a hard time. “All right, _Vecchio._ That’s two victims, teeth marks on both. You working on a pattern here?”  
   
What the hell? Ray looked down at Frannie’s hand still in his own. If only the stupid bite marks Victoria had given him hadn’t disappeared. He could have been off the hook by now. But with his luck they’d probably try to claim he’d bitten his own neck and charge for health insurance fraud. “I’m the one who brought her in.” This guy had to be an idiot. What kind of person held hands with the guy who attacked her?   
   
“You don’t want to get smart with me, Vecchio.” Taft came closer, which was a mistake because even Frannie looked like she wanted to deck him. Maybe she found it just a little bit insulting that some guy thought her pathetic enough to sit next to the guy who attacked her like they were best friends. Maybe they’d dope her up on one of those painkillers and she’d lose her mind and kick Taft in the balls, if Ray didn’t beat her to it.  
   
Ray stood up. “I had nothing to do with this. Talk to her. She’s got a nice shiny account for you.” Except Frannie didn’t know the name Victoria Metcalfe, and Ray didn’t think this guy cared whether he was innocent or not. What the hell had the real Vecchio done to get I.A. on his ass like this?  
   
“Yeah I’m sure you’ve told her exactly what to say. Follow me, Vecchio. We’ve got questions for you.”  
   
Questions? Henry could shove his questions up his ass. In fact, Ray was willing to use his boot to help him. But it wasn’t like Frannie wouldn’t spell it all out in the police report, except for the name. Ray wasn’t ready to give that up yet.  
   
Welsh of all people sat in the waiting room when Ray followed Taft out. What, was everyone working overtime tonight? But he didn’t have his usual shirt and tie on, just normal jeans and a sweatshirt, and he looked more exhausted than usual. Someone must have gotten him out of bed to come down here. Taft probably.   
   
“Vecchio . . .” Welsh stood up when he saw him. “Francesca all right?”  
   
Ray nodded and opened his mouth to say she’d be out real soon, but Taft got right in his face before he could.  
   
“You like attacking girls, Vecchio? Can’t get a date?”  
   
Ray went real still, staring the guy down where he stood about half a head taller. He didn’t need this right now. “Check the evidence. I didn’t do this, so why don’t you suck my dick, okay?”  
   
“Vecchio . . . “ Welsh got that warning in his voice like he wanted to give him a time-out. It didn’t work. Taft looked up at him like he wanted to hit him, and he could just go ahead and try, because ever since Victoria had bitten him Ray had had this unnatural strength. It’d be easy to grab him by the throat and scare the shit out of him like he did to Dewey the other day. And then everyone would think he was a violent psychopath. Ray tried not to bite his lip. He hated himself sometimes.   
   
Taft didn’t back away. This smug look came over his face like he suddenly decided that since he couldn’t hit him, he was going to get the upper hand by getting under Ray’s skin instead. “Getting a little overconfident? Is that the problem? All that power going to your head? What kind of guy shoots his ex-wife?”  
   
Great. Now they were back on Stella, who was probably upstairs somewhere, hooked to half a dozen machines. A reminder Ray didn’t need. “I didn’t shoot her.” How many times had he said that over the past few days?   
   
Henry came closer, closer enough for Ray to smell the coffee on him and the blood from the vein throbbing at his temple, and wasn’t that just great. “Come on. She divorces you, you follow her around like a lost puppy, and she kicks you over and over for everyone to see, and to top it all off gets herself a new guy. How does a guy like you deal with that? It was your gun, Vecchio.”  
   
His gun. Ray remembered what he’d said to Fraser in the car on Friday afternoon. His gun, that made him responsible. He was tried of wondering if he was responsible, and why wasn’t Taft shutting up long enough for him to say he wasn’t playing this game without a lawyer?  
   
“Brother says she’s complained of you stalking her. You’re short-tempered, have a history of violence. Guys like you are always beating on their wives. Is that why she left you?”  
   
That got him. Ray knew Taft was just trying to provoke him to prove himself right, but it got him. He grabbed the guy by the lapels of his pressed little suit jacket, and all he could think about was sinking his teeth into that doughy little neck and drawing blood. “Look, for the last time. I didn’t do any of . . .”  
   
“He’s telling the truth.”   
   
Ray didn’t even have time for the voice to register, the blood was pounding so strong in his ears. Someone grabbed him from behind, repeating, “Ray, Ray, Ray,” in his ear when his hands wouldn’t uncurl from Taft’s jacket, and where did Fraser come from? He was pulling him backward. He must have gotten his message.  
   
“Who the hell are you?” Taft was breathing hard when Ray let him go, straightening his suit. But Ray didn’t care about him anymore. Fraser shouldn’t sneak up on him like that, especially after he’d worried the hell out of him earlier.  
   
“Allow me to present Constable Fraser,” Welsh spoke up in his own smug little voice, one that tried not to let on how glad he was to see Fraser. That made two of them. “He plays the lyre for Cerberus over here.”  
   
Cerberus? What the fuck was a Cerberus? Fraser looked down and rubbed his eyebrow, embarrassed, and for the first time Ray noticed that he was breathing hard too like he’d been running ten miles. Worse, he looked almost as shaken as Frannie.   
   
“Gentlemen, if we could . . .”  
   
Welsh hustled them into one of those little rooms where they took your insurance information. It wasn’t like the hospital staff would object. No one liked to interfere with police work. Their buddy Taft didn’t look too pleased with Fraser’s interruption though.  
   
“What’s going on here?”  
   
Fraser went around to face them from across the cheap metal table in the center of the room, his expression all tight and determined. Man, he didn’t look good, and Ray didn’t think it had anything to do with the two little bandaids just barely peeking out from under the collar of his flannel shirt either – something Ray couldn’t afford to think about right now. He took comfort in the fact that Fraser’s shirt and jacket hid them pretty well.  
   
“Ray didn’t attack Francesca Vecchio or Stella Kowalski,” Fraser got right to the point. “In both cases the attacker was female.”  
   
Welsh closed the door, his face going from tired to stern. And you didn’t mess with Welsh when he got stern. Fraser knew that. “You know something we don’t, Constable?”  
   
Fraser nodded, in that grim way family members nodded when they were asked to identify a body. They always looked half in shock, and Fraser definitely had a lot to be shocked about lately.   
   
“Two days ago this was left on the cot in my office.” He pulled out something from the inside pocket of his leather jacket, an unfolded piece of paper in a plastic bag, laying it on the table. “Along with this.” A gun, in another plastic bag, just like the one Ray carried. Why didn’t he show anyone this before? Fraser met his eyes from across the table and seemed to read his mind. “I was reluctant to jump to conclusions without proof, perhaps on account of . . . sentimental reasons. But I received a phone call at Detective Vecchio’s apartment approximately three and half hours ago which more than confirmed where these items came from.”  
   
Phone call? Ray hadn’t heard the phone ring, but then again he’d been sound asleep. Taft picked up the note from the desk, probably looking for a signature, while Ray and Welsh kept their eyes on Fraser. “This doesn’t tell us anything.”  
   
Fraser’s gaze went straight to the floor. His lips moved and he put his hands on the table like he needed to brace himself. “The note was written by a woman named Victoria Metcalfe,” he said after a long pause, “a former . . . acquaintance of mine. The gun belongs to Detective Vecchio and is identical to the one used in the shooting of Stella Kowalski in an attempt to frame him. I’m afraid Ms. Vecchio was attacked for more personal reasons. I was seen with her earlier this evening.”  
   
He bowed his head like he was the one confessing to the crimes, and Ray just stared at him, so floored he could have fallen over. He was turning her in. All that guilt about ten years ago, and he was turning her in. Ray had to sit down. Luckily, there was a chair behind him. All of a sudden he felt so bad for thinking Fraser would do otherwise, for calling him selfish the other day. The guy had offered his own blood and here he was trying to do the right thing, and maybe Fraser wasn’t doing it so much for him as for justice itself, but . . .   
   
Taft wasn’t buying it though, but he didn’t put the piece of paper down, and too bad Ray couldn’t make out what it said, but that definitely was his gun Fraser had pulled out, his own back-up gun. He hadn’t used it in months and had totally forgotten that it was even in the car to notice it missing in the first place.  
   
“A mysterious neck-biting woman?” Taft looked over at Welsh. “You believe this?”  
   
“Hey,” Welsh stabbed a finger back at him. “If Fraser says Victoria Metcalfe, he’s not lying here. Hell hath no fury like you wouldn’t believe.”  
   
“He’s in with Vecchio.”  
   
Ray thought he saw something tense up in Fraser’s face about being “in with Vecchio” a couple hours ago, but he did his best to hide it. “You might try asking Ms. Kowalski herself. She’s awake and has identified her assailant as a dark-haired white female. She and I both know Ray isn’t dangerous.”  
   
Ray was glad he was already sitting down, because that one definitely would have knocked him over he was so relieved to hear it. Stella was awake? How come Fraser hadn’t told him? Then again, it wasn’t like Fraser didn’t make dramatic revelations a habit, and Ray was just so wound up pretty much everything came as a shock right now. “Stella gonna be okay?” That was the important question. They had to stick to the important stuff, like catching her attacker. He could check on Stella later.   
   
Fraser glanced at him. “It appears so, Ray.” But he didn’t elaborate, and Ray guessed he hadn’t been all that interested in her medical condition, just the details that pertained to the case, which Ray supposed was fair enough.  
   
Taft was still looking over the note. “Thirst? Changes? Is this some kind of code? When did Vecchio here meet this woman?”  
   
Fraser really looked Ray’s way this time, really focused on him, and the look on his face was so guilty Ray was afraid Taft would start thinking Fraser was the one who actually had something to do with this.   
   
“I think it’s time to tell the truth, Ray,” he said quietly in his there’s-nowhere-to-run voice.    
   
The truth? The stuff that hadn’t gotten him anywhere about how he’d been out Thursday night nowhere near Stella? About how he hadn’t even fired a gun recently so why didn’t they give him a paraffin test and get on with it? Or . . .? “Everything?” The thing worse than actually being guilty of the crime, the thing Victoria had done to him?    
   
“You got something to hide?” Taft’s beady eyes focused on Ray now, holding that note in his little meat hooks for fingers. Ray still itched to punch him.   
   
“Yeah,” Welsh folded his arms. “The part that’s personal.”  
   
Ray blinked. What did Welsh know about personal? If he knew something about him and Fraser . . . Well, he’d rather have Welsh know about that than the other thing. Ray couldn’t be the first guy in the world to get down with his partner. But Fraser was waiting, standing there with his arms at his sides like he was expecting the firing squad, blaming himself for everything. And maybe Ray could pop him one for scaring the hell out of him leaving the apartment like that and making him yell like a nutcase in the Consulate parking lot, not to mention keeping evidence stashed away for two whole days, but Fraser had come this far for him; Ray had to put together the rest. It wasn’t like he hadn’t figured it out in half a second on Saturday afternoon anyway, and now that they had testimony and he knew he wasn’t responsible . . .   
   
“It’s like I said before.” Ray took a deep breath. “I was out Thursday night, hadn’t seen Stella since before Christmas. Fraser and I got into an argument and he called me a drunken sleazeball, so I got pissed and went to this club called Ruby’s. I was drunk and this woman started coming onto me . . .”  
   
He stopped when he noticed Taft laughing under his breath. “Yeah, me and the wife have been there too.”  
   
The wife? He sensed something about him and Fraser now too? Or was he just being a jackass? “Look, you want me to talk or what?”  
   
Taft shrugged. “Fine, talk. It’s your own ass you’re trying to save here.”  
   
Right, with no thanks to this guy. Ray got out of the chair, and he couldn’t but pace as he went on. “So this woman started coming onto me, “She had dark hair, pale, in her thirties – just like Fraser says. She said she knew the real Vecchio, and maybe that should have tipped me off, but it’s not like I’ve seen her picture before, and anyway she starts kissing me and . . . Fraser, you sure you wanna hear this?” He couldn’t expect Fraser to be magically okay with hearing about some other guy getting blowjobs and sex from Victoria just because he turned her in. This whole thing had hurt Fraser enough as it was.  
   
Fraser still stood there with hands at his sides, waiting for that imaginary bullet. “Go ahead, Ray.” He sounded so solemn, and fuck Ray hated seeing Fraser in this position.   
   
“No, I’ll spare you guys the details.” Ray changed his mind, and not just for Fraser’s sake. The part about the blowjob and the sex fell into the personal category all of a sudden, because Ray started thinking about Fraser up against him in front of the fridge, and Fraser kissing the back of his neck and running his hands under his shirt. And the truth was, after he’d come to in that alley Thursday night, he’d felt dirty. He hadn’t known anything about “Tori,” and what he’d been ready to call the best sex ever at the time didn’t feel as half as good as when he and Fraser had gone at it a couple hours ago. That had felt _right,_ like Fraser understood how to move and where Ray wanted him to touch him, and . . . Ray tried to clear his head, wondering how he could stand here thinking about sex at a time like this. But it was like he said, dicks were selfish. “The point is, we went outside in back of the club and I had my hand up her skirt and she got so excited she . . . she bit my neck and started sucking up my blood. I swear to God. I blacked out and she left me there. That’s when she must have broken into my car and taken my gun. When I woke up I drove to the Consulate. I was . . . I was scared, I guess, freaked out. I didn’t know what to do.”  
   
“Constable Turnbull can confirm that Ray was indeed there,” Fraser backed him up. “I tended Ray’s wounds myself. They were deep. I tried to convince him to go to the hospital, but to no avail. He spent the night in my office.” Ray was thankful that didn’t sound like anything that would give the wrong idea.  
   
Welsh looked pretty pissed listening to all this. “And exactly when were you planning on telling us this, Detective?”  
   
Ray drew in another deep breath. Where did he start with that one? When he was sure he hadn’t hurt Stella? When he found a way to explain that Victoria turned him into a freaking vampire without sounding like a headcase? When he had a lawyer present? That one should have been obvious. “How was I to know these two things had anything to do with each other? Everything didn’t click until I heard the name Victoria and about the marks on Stella’s neck, and then when I saw Frannie . . . “ Fraser had tried to tell him on Friday that the woman at the club was the key, but Ray’s head had been all over the place then; he hadn’t been ready to think straight. “And the main thing? The marks she gave me just vanished when I woke up Friday morning. How the hell was I supposed to explain that? Fraser saw them. I’m not making this up.” Even if Fraser still had the bloody compress in the trash and Ray pulled out the shirt he’d worn that night, there was nothing on him to prove he’d been attacked too and not just in some regular bar fight.   
   
“She’s dangerous,” Fraser put in. “I believe we may be dealing with the unexplainable. She wants revenge and I suppose given that framing me the last time didn’t work, she’s elected to set her sights on others close to me.”  
   
Taft glanced at Welsh and then maybe looked like he was starting to come around. “What the hell did you do to this woman to piss her off like this?”  
   
Fraser lowered his head again, standing there like he had a ten ton weight on his shoulders, one that had only gotten heavier giving Victoria up. “I fell in love with her,” he told the table top, “and then I sent her to prison.” He looked like he could crumble into about a million pieces.  
   
“Let’s go talk to Ms. Kowalski,” Welsh seemed in a hurry to be out of there or maybe he just figured Fraser needed to be left alone now. “We’ll see if her account matches Ms. Vecchio’s.”  
   
He and Taft collected the note and the gun from the desk and left. The door slammed shut and everything went quiet. Ray and Fraser just stood there, Fraser staring at the empty table top and Ray staring at Fraser. Suddenly Ray didn’t know what to say, because the last the time they were alone he’d been wriggling under Fraser coming his brains out, and that wasn’t the kind of thing you talked about at a moment like this. But he had to say something, because it only took one look at Fraser’s face to see what it had cost him to give up Victoria like that, and he was proud of him. Relieved as hell and fucking proud.   
   
“Fraser, you okay?” Ray wanted to come closer, but he didn’t. It still bothered him to look at Fraser’s neck even with the bandaids, facing that he’d done something like that to someone he cared about, that he’d probably need to do things like that for the rest of his life now. Victoria’s going to jail wouldn’t change that. He wanted to know about that phone call in his apartment, but he guessed that fell into the personal category too and maybe Fraser didn’t want to talk about it.   
   
“I’m fine, Ray.” Fraser straightened and rubbed the back of his neck, oblivious until then of how close Ray had been watching him. He cleared his throat and tried to put on the brave Mountie face. “I just heard about Francesca. How is she?”  
   
Just heard? Then Fraser hadn’t gotten his message? What was he doing here, then? But he didn’t look in the mood for a hundred questions right now.   
   
“She’s gonna be okay. She was hoping you’d .  . .”   
   
Ray swallowed the lump in his throat and looked down at the floor, all shiny and hospital clean. Who was he kidding? He’d been the one half frantic for Fraser, scared to death that he’d run off with Victoria already. Maybe he’d been kidding himself about a lot of things since he’d met Fraser, and God this was hard.   
   
“I’m sorry, Ray.” Fraser was the one watching him intently now, like he knew what he was thinking, and Ray didn’t know whether that was a good or bad thing right now. He just knew he wanted to apologize for the things that had gone through his mind lately, for the things he’d said over the past few days that hadn’t come out right. He shouldn’t have doubted. Partners didn’t doubt each other, and Fraser was so good of a partner he didn’t even spell out to Taft and Welsh what Victoria had made him into. Ray owed him thanks for that one too. He stepped around the table.   
   
“Look, you just left earlier before I could . . .” Say what? That he’d just had the best sex of his life with Fraser. That the thought of him going off with Victoria made him want to hit something? And when did being alone in a room with Fraser and saying something so simple as _I’m sorry, I’ve been wrong about a lot of things_ become so freaking terrifying?  
   
The words died on his tongue anyway when Fraser put a hand out. “Can we talk about this later?”  
   
Ray’s heart slid right into his stomach to be cut off like that, but he nodded, reluctantly. “Yeah.” If Fraser wanted to freeze up on him now he had to give him that, after what he’d just done. Emotional contact, it took a lot out of you. He just had to be patient. Maybe he’d get what he wanted, maybe he wouldn’t. Ray wished it didn’t feel like standing on the edge of a building though, with Fraser putting him on pause prolonging the agony of wondering whether he’d fall or fly. “How’d you know about Stella?” He changed the subject.   
   
Fraser had no trouble answering that one. “I found the number of your attorney by the telephone. I took the liberty of calling to see how much time I had until she agreed to meet with you tomorrow. She told me the news and I came down straightaway to see about exonerating you.”  
   
Ray’s head came up slowly, and this surge of . . . something rushed right through his chest. Fraser had to have done this after the phone call, which meant . . . “So you heard from Victoria, and you were still gonna stick around and work on my case?”  
   
He thought it was hearing about Frannie that had changed Fraser’s mind, convinced him of what kind of person Victoria was. He hadn’t thought about Fraser choosing him over her. It felt like one of those moments in the movies where you ran at the girl you liked and kissed her because you were so relieved you hadn’t lost her after all. Except Fraser wasn’t a girl. But who was Ray kidding? It practically killed him standing two feet apart from Fraser right now.  
   
“That was the plan, yes,” Fraser answered like it was nothing, just a simple fact handed out. But what did he mean “was”? It wasn’t anymore? Ray got scared all over again.  
   
“What do you mean, Fraser?”  
   
Fraser looked around like he was afraid someone would overhear. He ducked his head and pulled in a big breath. “Victoria. I’ve been tracking her ever since she left those items in my apartment. I detected marigolds and fresh cement from her footprints, and to make a long story short I have reason to believe she’s been hiding out in the cemetery not far from Stella’s apartment.”  
   
Ray stood quiet a moment, unsure whether Fraser was telling him this as a friend or as a cop. He hadn’t given Welsh or Taft Victoria’s whereabouts, and might just be too naïve to realize Ray might actually have to use this information. What Fraser had done tonight had been hard enough on him already without taking advantage of Fraser’s trust for more.   
   
“Look, Fraser, you might not want to . . .”  
   
Say anything else you don’t want the police to know, Ray was going to say. But all of a sudden Fraser pushed his sleeve up and glanced nervously at his watch.  
   
“I’m sorry, Ray. I have to go.”  
   
“Go?” Ray’s chest went tight. “Go where? You can’t go.”  
   
Fraser’s face went as grave as a goddamned tombstone and he turned to face the door. He looked ashamed, his shoulders tight like he was fighting to keep himself from sagging forward. “To do what I should have done the last time,” he said, almost too quietly for Ray to hear.  
   
Ray’s heart went right past his stomach all the way to the freaking floor. He felt like he’d been shot and was bleeding out but he didn’t care. Slowly, it registered, and Ray could practically hear the relief and the hope shattering. All the kissing and the sex didn’t mean anything, because Fraser wasn’t staying with him. He’d just come forward out of guilt or obligation and now he was going to run off with her, probably help her avoid the police and escape. After everything she’d done, he hadn’t put Victoria behind him at all.   
   
“Fraser . . .” Ray called out weakly, but he didn’t know how to put the truth into words, that it scared the hell out of him that all a sudden he felt like nothing mattered, that Fraser was going and he would just be left . . .   like this, alone. But he couldn’t stand being another obligation. Fraser looked like he’d had enough guilt for both of them.  
   
Fraser put his hand on the doorknob and turned around. “Don’t let Francesca out of your sight, Ray. She may well still be in danger.” He left with that, closing the door behind him.  
   
Ray sank back into his little metal folding chair. What did Fraser mean, look after Frannie? Why was he running off with Victoria if he knew she was dangerous? And how could Frannie still be in danger anyway if the two of them were skipping town? Ray started seething. Fraser had to know this was a mistake. A guy like him couldn’t really love someone who went out and put people in the hospital, and who cared about betraying him? If he was going to lose Fraser anyway he might as well do the right thing. Friends had an obligation to stop each other from doing stupid shit, and that included trying to kill themselves and throwing their lives away for crazy attempted murderers. Fraser’d probably move back to Canada and never speak to him again for it, and Ray’d have to take that, because the time would come eventually when Fraser would go home anyway. Worse, Ray had to face the fact that maybe he was the one who’d have to go away someplace where he couldn’t hurt anybody. He was a vampire for crying out loud. But even that didn’t matter. This wasn’t some petty soap opera love triangle; this was Fraser getting involved with a violent criminal. You saved someone from that kind of person no matter who they were.   
   
Ray got up and found Welsh outside with the Uniforms who’d talked to Frannie. Taft wasn’t around, probably too busy trying to convince Stella that she’d been abused for twelve years and just couldn’t remember. He wasn’t important right now though. Ray ran up to Welsh, not giving a shit if he was interrupting.  
   
“I need some help here. Fraser’s gonna do something stupid. You know what I always say; no one’s got the right to do something stupid.” Especially not a guy who let you drink his blood to keep you from starving. This was the least Ray could do in return. Maybe Fraser would thank him someday.   
   
Welsh turned and looked at him like he’d flat out run out of patience, but he sighed and reached into the front pocket of his sweatshirt. “I can’t tell you how mystified I am, Detective, by the messes you and Fraser manage to get yourselves out of.”  
   
They hadn’t got out of this mess yet, but Ray looked down at what Welsh held in his hand. His badge. Maybe Ray’d lied and told Fraser he didn’t care about it once, but he was sure glad to see it now, because with any luck it would help him serve and protect when it counted most. Better than that, he was glad Welsh was apparently on his side here, holding off on all the usual “you’re way too personally involved” bullshit.   
   
“What, you just carry that around with you?”  
   
Welsh gave him that don’t-push-me look, and sometimes Ray had to admit he respected the guy for not hitting people in the head for asking stupid questions. “Constable Fraser called the station a couple hours ago,” Welsh told him. “He thought it might be time to give it back to you.”  
   
Ray took his badge from Welsh and closed his hand around it. So Fraser really had made up his mind about turning Victoria in before he’d heard about Frannie. What did that mean? Ray looked at the glass doors where Fraser would have gone. It didn’t matter what it meant, because it didn’t change Ray’s plans any. Now all he had to do was get Frannie and get the hell out of here.  
   
It took another half hour to get her discharged and get her prescriptions filled at the hospital pharmacy. They loaded her up with antibiotics and a nice bottle of narcotics she didn’t take yet, which was good because Ray didn’t want to leave her unconscious in the car, which she wasn’t too happy to hear about.  
   
“So now I need a babysitter?” Her face got real pinched when he told her she’d be coming home with him. Like she’d complain if she had to spend the night at the Consulate with Fraser. But Ray got it; everyone wanted someone better than the weird guy with the spiked hair and the anger issues, the guy people thought went around attacking girls. And maybe they weren’t even too far off. He’d hit Fraser once, which wasn’t all that different from hitting your wife or your girlfriend considering that they‘d slept together. Whatever the reason, Ray Kowalski was second best, not good enough. He hadn’t forgotten that he used to like Frannie until he started thinking of her as his sister. Or maybe until she started making bambi eyes at Fraser, which pretty much made his point.   
   
Second best made him think of Stella though. Ray thought about going up to see her, just catching a glimpse, but her new guy was probably up with her right now, who probably thought Ray was using his police connections to get away with something. It didn’t hurt as much as it used to, the thought of Stella with someone else, because right now Ray had a someone else too. Someone who was being torn away from him.  
   
“Fraser thinks she might still be after you.” Ray got his head back in the conversation. “You can sleep on the couch.”  
   
“The couch?” Frannie turned around and glared at him where she’d been walking ahead – stalking more like. Well at least she wasn’t dizzy anymore. “You’re gonna make me sleep on the couch? What kind of gentleman are you?”  
   
The kind that didn’t think it was right for her to sleep in the same bed where he’d screwed the guy she liked. But he couldn’t say that. He didn’t have enough patience left to argue anyway. If she wanted to think the worst of him just like everyone else, she could go right ahead.   
   
“Come on, Frannie, it’s the 90’s. You’re just as capable of sleeping on the couch as I am.”  
   
She looked back at him like she couldn’t decide whether she wanted to laugh or not, but she shook her head and muttered under breath, “Probably jerking off in there.”  
   
“Yeah, yeah. I was,” he lied, just to get off this subject, because even hearing about your fake brother jerking off was like hearing he took part in satanic rituals and ranked up there with things you wished you didn’t know. Not that getting off on drinking someone’s blood didn’t come scarily close to all that twisted demonic bullshit. “I was looking at naked midgets and jerking off. You got me. Now let’s get back to the point. This Victoria woman, your brother ever talk about her?”  
   
She stopped in the hallway and folded her arms, and Ray could see she didn’t want to answer, but she did. “Yeah,” she said after a minute, scowling down at the floor. “He said she tried to set him up and that . . . that Fraser was really into her.”  
   
That part hurt. Ray could see it in her face, and he understood. It hurt him too, so he sighed and went easy on her.  
   
“You miss your brother?”  
   
Frannie bit her lip like the question caught her off guard, and then looked away, trying to hide her face. Ray got that one too. He didn’t measure up to Vecchio either. Fraser probably wished the guy were here instead too.   
   
“Look I didn’t mean . . .” Ray rubbed the back of his neck when the rest didn’t seem to want to come out. He hadn’t realized the subject was so painful, and he felt bad for turning the knife reminding her that her brother was off with the mob in some deep shit right now. The night had been hell enough already.  
   
“It’s okay,” she shook her head, but Ray didn’t think it was. Nothing he could do about it though.  
   
“Back to this Victoria chick. I think she’s maybe some kind of vampire.”  
   
That got the old Frannie back. “Vampire?” her head whipped up. “Come on, Ray. Have you been drinking?”  
   
He wished. He wished he were dreaming, but tell somebody vampires didn’t exist when they had their teeth in someone else’s neck. “I know it sounds crazy, but come on; she’s going around biting people. Maybe it’s some kind of weird disease. I read something about a vampire virus once.”  
   
“Where? In your video games?” Poor Frannie looked like she just couldn’t take anymore craziness, and Ray couldn’t blame her. She didn’t even know the half. “Where’s her cape, Ray? Where’s her Transylvanian accent?”   
   
“No cape. No accent.” Frannie watched too much TV. Nothing happened like it did on TV. She should have figured that one out from watching cop shows. “This isn’t the movies, Frannie. I’m just saying, there’s something queer going on here.”  
   
“Yeah,” she snorted, and started walking again. “In your brain. What are we gonna do, Ray? Drive a stake through her heart? Cut off her head? Or better yet maybe we can kill her maker, because that’s the only cure.”  
   
Kill the maker. Was that his only hope? Fraser would love that. Ray didn’t think he could even do that, and it wasn’t like attempted murder would get Victoria the death penalty. But no one had made him drink Victoria’s blood, so maybe he had to accept what he was, take responsibility. Right now, he was just here to do his job, as a friend and as a cop. He patted the gun Welsh had made the Uniform hand over to him since his own had to be sent for fingerprints, tucking safely into his sweatpants. He was bringing Victoria in no matter what  
   
“Okay, okay, you’ve made your point. Come on.” Ray let go and opened the glass door out into the parking lot. It was still raining, and two patrol cars waited to follow them out. Ray didn’t plan on letting them get close enough to see Fraser and Victoria together, and maybe Fraser had gotten a headstart but since he was on foot Ray figured that didn’t matter. At least, he hoped it didn’t. He hoped they still had time.   
   
**  
   
Fraser had never thought himself easily startled, let alone superstitious, but the cemetery shadows had an almost eerie cast to them as he made his away along one of the dark cement paths. The rain came down hard, the branches of half-barren trees swaying in the wind. They may as well have creaked like in all the dozens of old horror movies, the place looked so foreboding. Fraser certainly felt as though he had stepped into a horror movie of late.   
   
He was soaked, his hair plastered to his scalp and his jeans sticking to his skin, and the air felt so icy cold he may as well have been back home. A part of him wanted to turn around and return to the hospital, but he had come this far and too much damage had been done already for his resolve to fail him.   
   
The scent of mud and stone and flowers filled his nose, and when he had entered the grounds he spied the telltale orange cones on the sidewalk indicating recent construction work. Indeed, the cemetery had laid fresh cement here only days ago. He should have remembered that in the first place, but it was safe to say his mind had been scattered along a dozen paths over the past few days.   
   
The cemetary was deserted, and not for the first time since leaving the hospital Fraser wished Dief were with him. Perhaps it was unseemly for a man his age to take comfort in an animal companion, but until tonight he had never fully appreciated the sense of protection Diefenbaker provided. Tonight the streets of the city had felt twice as dangerous, but perhaps that was merely because Fraser had felt like a man marching to his own execution.   
   
Diefenbaker was better left behind in any case. If the legends were to be believed then he might very well fall under Victoria’s spell. Vampires, it seemed, possessed the ability to command the obedience of wolves. Dief was only half wolf, of course, and the legends had been wrong about other crucial facts, such as the danger of sunlight and the matter of being undead, but Fraser was unwilling to take chances.  
   
Ray must have driven by the Consulate earlier. Fraser had seen Dief in the backseat of Ray’s GTO in the hospital parking lot and there was no other logical way he could have gotten there. He might fall under Ray’s control just as easily, but Dief had accepted Ray as a part of his pack and Fraser trusted him in Ray’s hands. Ray would take care of him, take him home if need be. If things went badly.  
   
Ray . . . Fraser frowned over the name. With any luck he would be cleared by morning, but regardless, Fraser couldn’t help feeling as though everything they had built together, the partnership and the trust, had been unfairly ripped to shreds in all this mess. Ray didn’t see it that way, of course. Fraser hadn’t forgotten how his face had lit up when he had showed up at Ray’s door earlier this evening. But he was still in shock. It only been a few days since Victoria had attacked him, since Stella had gone into the hospital. Naturally, he would turn to someone familiar. But eventually the time for blame would come and Ray would resent being made a pawn in Victoria’s quest for revenge. He would blame him, and once that kind of anger set in Ray would never feel the same about him again.   
   
Why had she come back? Fraser had asked himself that a hundred times since finding her note. Why wasn’t it enough that she had managed to escape the authorities the last time? Revenge could not possibly be worth being caught, not to her. There were of course theories that criminals harbored a certain unconscious desire to be caught. She was far from stupid, and one had to wonder why she had left both Stella and Frannie alive. But Fraser grudgingly admitted to himself that he found a deep-seated need to suffer for her crimes difficult to believe of her.   
   
Of course, he had wrestled with believing her guilty at all. For two days he had done his best to convince himself that there must be some other explanation, that her revenge could neither be that cruel nor that blind. It was as though she sought to destroy everything dear to him until he was left with nothing but the pain and guilt of watching it die. Fraser had gained an understanding of the drive for revenge since his father’s murder, but there came a point when she had to realize that nothing could give her back those eight years in prison.  
   
He found her beneath an oak tree not far from the crypt where he and Ray had had their first talk about Ellory and Stella. She stood under a large umbrella that shielded her from the rain, watching him approach with the same white face and cascading dark hair he remembered, blowing about her shoulders in the wind.  She had grown paler since he had seen her last, more desolately beautiful. Colder where Ray now seemed luminous, so cold the night hardly seemed to touch her. On the contrary, she seemed to have been made from it, like something that had solidified out of mist, hollow and unreal.   
   
Fraser’s heart did not so much as race at the sight of her, and he was uncertain whether that surprised him or not. Once, it had stunned him just to look on her, but now he remained immune, unaffected, and a part of him was relieved. The rest of him was vaguely saddened by the idea that love could die at all.  
   
“Ben . . . ” That voice . . . That at least stirred something in him. That beautiful voice. She almost sounded genuinely happy to see him, as though the woman who had put two people in the hospital and this woman were two different people. Fraser almost wished that were so. If vampires existed then why not vengeful doppelgangers? But he knew that wasn’t the case. He wouldn’t have come if it were.  “I thought you’d find me.”  
   
Fraser stepped forward into the moonlight, but he kept his distance, as though she really were some demonic representation of the woman he had saved ten years ago and there was no telling what she would do to him if he got too close.  “You didn’t provide much help.” His voice carried over the rain and wind through the darkness around them. He sounded tired, resigned to an outcome he had never wanted, and he was.   
   
Even her smile was cold as she tilted her head to one side. “Well I said I’d be here if you could find me. No guarantees.” She managed to sound half mocking, as though she had been toying with him all these years. Perhaps she had been. Fraser’s heart sank a little to see her as that soulless and twisted.    
   
No guarantees indeed. Perhaps she did not want to be found. Perhaps she knew that he’d gone to the police. She had always given him the feeling that she’d never fully trusted him, or anyone for that matter, and sometimes Fraser believed her hatred stemmed from the fact that he had proven her right, turning her in so long ago, betraying her as she saw it.    
   
“It was your phone call,” he told her quietly. “I heard the recitation of a rosary in the background and the sound of a woman crying. I tracked marigolds and cement on your footprints, and I remembered they were repairing the sidewalk here. I happened to see it when Ray and I passed by Monday afternoon.”  
   
Her laugh was almost patronizing, as though he had puzzled out something she believed beyond his capability, even though it had not been difficult at all compared to what he had often managed to muddle out back home. But perhaps after what he had fallen for the last time, she hardy had reason to give him much credit. “Well you were always good at finding people,” she said with barely disguised bitterness, “especially when they’re wanted.”   
   
Indeed, he had tracked her for days that first time, in the name of duty. But he had his own accusations to level. She had broken into the Consulate and spied on him with Francesca earlier and her reasons had not been good. “You’ve been following me. You got away the last time. Why bother coming back?”    
   
She ignored the last question, slowly coming forward. Fraser’s first instinct was to retreat backward, but his feet felt rooted to the mud and he stood there as the rain ceased beading down on him, pattering her umbrella instead, shielding both of them now.    
   
“Well I’ve become good at tracking too.” Fraser could see her face clearly despite the darkness now that she stood less than a foot away. Her eyes had a cold blue light to them. She looked . . . inhuman. How could Ray have wanted her? How could he have wanted her? “Ever since it happened my senses have been stronger. Hearing, taste, touch. Smell.” She leaned close to him, so close Fraser shivered when her hair brushed his cheek, a black mass framing a white, white face. “You smell like him.” She touched her nose to his neck and inhaled deeply.  
   
Fraser closed his eyes. No doubt he did. No more than a few hours had passed since . . . Ray had been so warm, and Fraser had been so hungry for him, as hungry as Ray had been for blood. But little good thinking about it did now. The rain would have washed off most of Ray’s scent anyway.  
   
It could not wash off what Ray had done to him though. Victoria brought her hand up, touching her fingertips to the bandaids at Fraser’s neck. Her face tightened. “You let him,” she said with genuine hurt, and despite himself Fraser bowed his head. But he got a hold of himself in the next moment and pushed her hand away. Was this why she had come back after three years? Had she somehow learned that Ray had come into his life and sought to tear him away out of jealousy?  
   
“Why did you do this to him?” Fraser let go of Victoria’s hand before he could remember how warm she had been too when he woke with her in his arms after that storm had broken. Right now, she was cold, like frozen silk against his fingers.  
   
She laughed at the question. “You still don’t get it do you? What you did? What happened to me?”  
   
“I get that you put two people in the hospital and attacked my friend.”  
   
She laughed again, tilting the umbrella back so the rain streamed down on him once more, twirling it behind her almost coquettishly.  “I couldn’t help myself,” she smiled. “Trust me, I didn’t have to work very hard.”  
   
She was only saying that to wound him, and it did. The idea of them together . . . But if she could smell Ray on his skin then she knew what had happened between them, and if she had spied on him enough to know that Ray Vecchio had been replaced then who was to say she had not witnessed their argument outside the Consulate Thursday afternoon? Fraser’s motives for trying to convince Ray not to go to that club had to be plain enough to anyone even marginally more knowledgeable on the subject of feelings than himself.   
   
“You tried to frame him for murder. You left me his gun. Why?” Anger hardened his voice now. There was no holding it back. Ray was innocent. He deserved better, and more than that Fraser cared for him. But of course that was the point.   
   
“I thought he might want to use it.” She said it simply, coldly, as though it were not a man’s life they were speaking of. But she saw the distaste in Fraser’s face and sighed. “It’s terrible, being this way, the constant thirst. I don’t even know if I can die. I don’t even know why it was done to me, but it happened because of you, because you sent me to that place.”  
   
“I didn’t rob that bank in Alaska.” His own words caught him off guard, as though someone else were speaking through him. Ray perhaps – what he had said in the car had given Fraser a strange sense of validation. But it was hardly the first time Fraser had thought as much over the years during those long guilt-ridden debates with himself. He had tried to tell himself that perhaps someone had forced her into driving that getaway car, but after the incident with the diamonds he had eventually become convinced greed had been the only thing pushing her into taking part in that robbery.  
   
Victoria stepped back, looking as though he had struck her. “You son of a bitch,” she hissed. “When you saved my life out there in the snow, I thought you cared. You should have let me die, but you couldn’t, could you? You had to do the right thing to stay on your high horse, and look where it got me.”  
   
She shoved him backward, and Fraser nearly lost his balance. She was strong, and anger only made her stronger. He remembered the same unnatural strength in Ray when they had flung themselves at each other days ago.    
   
Her accusation was not so different from Ray’s either. Selfish, he had called him. Perhaps it was true. Perhaps he had saved her life out there in the snow to satisfy his own sense of what was right and fulfill his obligation as a police officer. Perhaps he had not thought of what it would mean for her. But even so, she was wrong.  
   
“I cared.” He had convinced himself that fate had led him to her that day, that he had known her across a thousand lifetimes. There had been something gentle in her, reciting that poem over and over, stroking his hair while the storm raged on, but the darkness he had also seen had eclipsed everything. He had tried to tell himself that prison had done that to her, that he had done that to her. But it had been there before, he’d seen it, in the way she cared nothing for her accomplices in that robbery, in the way he believed deep down that she was responsible for their deaths.   
   
Victoria’s features softened and she moved close again, lifting her hand to his face. The touch was soft too, and for a moment her eyes weren’t cold anymore. “Then come with me. We could run away together. I could make you what I am. We’ll go somewhere no one will find us. Home, if you want. Come on, Ben.” Her eyes bore into his, and there was hope there. Fraser read it clearly enough. But he couldn’t give in to it.  
   
Was that what she wanted? To make him like her, like Ray? Neither Ray nor Stella nor Francesca had deserved to suffer for what happened to her, and no matter how much Fraser regretted not letting her go, he couldn’t suffer with her either.   
   
“Not this time.”  
   
There had been a time when he thought uttering those words unthinkable, letting her down again, abandoning her . . . But Fraser realized that he truly had closed the door on whatever it was they were to each other, and now he was only looking on her through a barrier, from a distance.   
   
She went still and her face hardened. She had never banked on him refusing. “What do you mean? I thought that’s what you wanted. I thought you . . .?”  
   
A car door slammed in the distance, and Fraser heard two pairs of feet running toward them in the rain. His heart sped up with both anxiety and relief. He had been waiting for this. Victoria heard the footsteps too and turned to him with a hundred accusations on her face.  
   
Fraser swallowed, and the words came out before she could demand them. “I’ve informed the police of what you’ve done. I’ve come to say goodbye.”  
   
The air around them seemed to grow twenty degrees colder. Her mouth fell open and she stared at him, furious and betrayed, but Fraser was suddenly too on edge for guilt. He had taken a gamble choosing his words carefully at the hospital, and now he was powerless as to whether everything would turn out as he hoped. He didn’t have a gun, and he was uncertain whether he could match Victoria’s newfound strength. He did not even have Dief as a last resort.   
   
He caught sight of two figures coming nearer in the shadows, one familiarly slender, the other small, and for a moment the relief eclipsed everything else. Above all things, he had hoped he wouldn’t have to do this alone, though of course the provision against personal involvement prevented him from asking outright . . . the height and build of the taller figure looked about right though.   
   
Victoria must have recognized him too. “You piece of shit!” Her full-armed slap caught Fraser off guard. He staggered back, and his ears rang, and then everything happened at once.   
   
Victoria reached into the pocket of her coat, and Fraser didn’t know which he saw first, the gun or the figure darting out from behind one of the taller headstones, no more than ten yards from them now.  
   
“Fraser, get –“  
   
Ray indeed. Thank God. Fraser had counted on him following him here, in the name of justice and Stella if nothing else. He knew Ray, and justice for him was always personal; he always had to bring the perpetrator in himself, no matter how many times he was told that his feelings were getting the better of him. But Ray didn’t get a chance to finish. Victoria whirled in his direction and her gun went off without warning.  
   
The shot hit Ray in the chest. He staggered a moment and fell backward, clapping his left hand just below his collarbone. Fraser’s heart stopped, and suddenly he felt like he had ice water in his veins. He could hear Ray breathing hard, swearing under his breath, and then a figure was kneeling over him, grabbing his arm.  
   
“Ray? Ray?” a female voice called out in a panic, and Fraser quickly realized it was none other than Francesca. Ray must have taken Fraser’s warning not to let her out of his sight to heart. Ray didn’t answer her. He took his hand away from his chest and held it up for her to see. She let out a horrified sound that told Fraser Ray wasn’t wearing a vest, turning her white face in Fraser’s direction as though looking to him for help. But he couldn’t help her; he was too stunned. He just stood there paralyzed, staring at Ray through the rain.  
   
Victoria raised her gun again, and Fraser turned back to her in belated disbelief. She had fired without warning, in cold blood, with no hesitation at all, and she fired again before Fraser could so much as think to wrestle the gun away from her.    
   
Francesca screamed, and Fraser held his breath, but either Victoria’s aim had failed her or Francesca had managed to duck faster than anyone might have given her credit for, or else Ray had pushed her, letting out a raspy “fuck!” that barely carried over the bang of the shot. The next thing Fraser saw was Francesca picking herself up from where she had fallen on her side in the mud, crawling back toward Ray on all fours. He had his gun in his hand again, but he couldn’t seem to lift his arm, weak with the blood loss already. Francesca grabbed his hand and the shots rang through Fraser’s ears. One. Two. Explosive. Deafening.   
   
They hit Victoria with startling precision, directly in the chest and slightly to the left. The impact knocked her backward in the mud and she clutched both hands to the wound, blood trickling out between her fingers. Fraser stared, half expecting the holes the bullets had made to close up and her to scramble to her feet unharmed, healed, but from the terror on her face and her labored shallow breathing, there was no doubt that she was just as mortal as any other woman.  
   
He sank down with her as though he had been hit instead. A heavy, hollow feeling spread though his chest, growing larger and larger, and his hand closed over both of hers. “Victoria . . .” He felt suddenly out of breath, and he felt the wetness soaking his fingers, and he couldn’t bring himself to say anything more.  
   
She turned toward him, and for a moment Fraser felt as though he ceased to breathe at all. Her mouth opened, yet nothing but a strangled sound came out. Her eyelids fluttered, and she stared blankly up at him, dying.  
   
For a long time, Fraser knelt there. He heard the rain, but didn’t feel himself getting wet. He was soaked to the bone already. He heard Francesca fumbling in her purse for her cellular phone, dialing three numbers, 911. But the only thought to penetrate Fraser’s mind was _it’s over,_ and he didn’t know whether the relief or the regret tore at him the most.   
   
The sounds of sirens in the distance brought him to his feet again. He had nothing to cover her with, to shield her from the rain falling so hard now onto her face and hair. She looked just as she had when he found her in the snow all those years ago, lifeless, cold, above the holes in her chest and the spreading bloodstain her hands could not cover. He’d had no idea who she was then. No idea in the slightest. She had just seemed too angelic to let die.  
   
But she was dead, and he could not forget about Ray. Fraser swallowed the lump in his throat and turned, afraid of what he would see. Ray lay sprawled in the mud between two small headstones not far away. He was still breathing at least, thank God, Fraser could hear him rasping hard, his head rolled back while he clutched a hand to the right side of his chest. Frannie knelt over him, her hands together, and Fraser could hear her sniffling. The gun lay beside Ray’s free hand, out of her reach now. Fraser still did not know which one of them had pulled the trigger, but Ray had his glasses on and the aim had been unfaltering.   
   
The sirens roared louder – police and ambulance both, speeding up the rain-slick street in a blaze of orange and blue light. Fraser watched numbly as officers and paramedics piled out as though it were all a part of some surreal dream. It had been him on the ground the last time, shot in the back. Now it was Ray, and there was nothing Fraser could do but stand there. The paramedics would take care of him, he told himself, and the coroner would come for Victoria.  
 


	5. Chapter 5

Ray woke to the sounds of faraway voices and a phone ringing in another room. He thought maybe he’d fallen asleep with the TV on, but then he realized he was in a strange place, lying in a room with bright florescent lighting under stiff blue blankets that just weren’t his. He was groggy, like he’d just come out of a coma, and he had this weightless, empty-headed feeling liked he’d swallowed too much cold medicine. Worst of all there was something taped to the right side of his chest and the skin underneath felt hot and itchy. He heard the beep from a little machine close-by and one thing made sense.   
   
He was in the hospital.  
   
Ray opened his eyes all the way and saw the TV mounted on the ceiling across from him and the plain white walls and shiny white floor. The smell of ammonia filled his nose and the smell made him nauseous. More nauseous; whatever he was on made him feel like throwing up already.   
   
“Ray?”  
   
Fraser’s voice. Everything came back to him. They’d high-tailed it over the cemetery to take Victoria down. She’d pulled a gun on Fraser and Ray had darted out on instinct. He remembered the bullet hitting him, and he remembered firing back with Frannie steadying his hand, and he remembered Fraser kneeling over Victoria’s body before the paramedics came. He remembered his own shock and facing the fact that Fraser would hate him for pulling that trigger, but still as he’d lain there struggling to freaking breathe, he remembered wishing Fraser would come and kneel beside him instead.   
   
But Fraser was here now. Ray looked around and found him sitting on the empty bed on the other side of the room. He had on his same jeans and red flannel shirt, and he looked like he’d been sitting there a long time.  
   
“Fraser . . .?” Ray’s throat felt raw like he’d swallowed a handful of broken glass and his voice sounded hoarse and scratchy. He wanted water, but instead of asking Ray just stared stupidly from his pillow. Fraser was the last person he expected to wait by his bed after what had happened earlier.  
   
Fraser got up and stood over him, and Ray realized now that he had the room in focus that daylight had started coming in through the blinds behind him. That was kind of alarming, losing track of time like that. How long had he been asleep?  
   
“How are you feeling?” Fraser didn’t sound like he was talking to someone he hated. He sounded . . . worried.   
   
Ray looked down and saw the needle taped to his arm where they had him on some kind of morphine drip, which explained a lot. “Like crap,” he muttered. He hated painkillers and that half dead feeling, and the way they made him sick.  
   
“You’re lucky to be alive,” Fraser’s tone got a little bit sterner, and Ray got it. Fraser wasn’t too happy that he’d jumped out and gotten himself shot like that. Too bad for him, because no way would Ray have allowed the alternative. “That bullet nearly missed your lung. The doctors managed to remove it.”  
   
Surgery . . . A queasy sensation rippled through Ray’s stomach. The idea of lying there unconscious while someone cut him open set his teeth on edge. He had enough trouble with the dentist where he was awake enough to make sure they watched what the hell they were doing. But Fraser was right the wound was a little too high to have affected his lung, and the surgery was over and done with and nothing had been amputated as far as Ray could tell so maybe the doctors knew what they were doing. Besides, there was more important stuff to think about.   
   
“I’m glad you’re here, Fraser. Thought you’d be mad at me, for . . . you know . . .”  
   
Shooting her. Ray saw Fraser finish the sentence in his mind. He lowered his head and his expression got a whole lot darker. “You had a right to defend yourself, Ray,” he said after staring at the floor for about a decade. “She fired first.”  
   
Except he hadn’t been defending himself. He’d been defending Fraser and of course Frannie. But maybe this wasn’t the time to split hairs. Fraser didn’t need to feel like Victoria’s getting shot was his fault, not when he had this whole thing about protecting her.   
   
“She dead?”  
   
Fraser nodded, looking like the fact just about cut him open, and Ray didn’t push for the details. He only knew that the paramedics had raced him away in the ambulance before he ever found out whether anyone had to call the coroner or not.  
   
“Fraser, you don’t have to forgive me.” Ray was surprised to hear himself say it, but it was true. He’d shot the woman Fraser loved, and as haunted as Fraser looked right now Ray didn’t think he’d be getting over it any time soon.   
   
Fraser shook his head. “She did the things she did because of me, Ray. No mater how I wish I could change the outcome, you’re the last person I’d blame. You probably saved my life.” His voice softened on the last part, grateful for the fact. Ray was glad for it; he didn’t want Fraser believing something stupid like he should have died with her.   
   
“It hurt, Fraser,” Ray admitted after a minute, “thinking you’d run off with her.” He wondered if that was why he’d shot her without hesitation, if maybe his motives weren’t all that pure. Facing that about himself wouldn’t be easy to live with, but the fact that he’d kept her from blowing Fraser’s brains out made it a little bit easer.   
   
Fraser sat down on the edge of the bed. “That was never my intention. I . . . I don’t know what I felt for her, Ray,” he sighed. “I couldn’t stop thinking about what you said in the car the other day, that I had put her before the people she . . .”  
   
He couldn’t finish, and Ray started shaking his head. So much for sparing Fraser the blame; he was already acting like the guilty party when the guilty party was in the morgue down at the police station someplace.   
   
“She was a violent criminal, Fraser. They get your sympathy, make you feel responsible for the things they do, and eventually they turn on you. I’m a cop; I’ve seen it happen. Lot of good people end up dead that way.”  
   
“I see,” Fraser answered quietly, like it was just another failure on his part that he’d managed to get into such a mind blowing mess over your basic abusive relationship. But it wasn’t hard to do if you were someone like Fraser, bound and determined to do the right thing if it killed him. He just needed someone to give him a little perspective.   
   
“It’s okay, Fraser,” Ray told gently. “It’s not wrong to wanna believe in somebody, to wanna give them a chance.”  
   
“I suppose not,” Fraser sighed again. Ray couldn’t tell whether he was convinced or not, but that would take time. “Stella was here,” Fraser changed the subject.   
   
That came as a surprise – the good kind. “Yeah?” He couldn’t help but smile. “What’d she say?” Probably that he was an idiot for getting himself shot and that she hated him for getting her mixed up with psychotic attempted murderers.   
   
“That she’s glad you’re all right, as am I.” Fraser smiled down at him, faintly.   
   
Ray doubted Stella had actually said that, but he was glad she was up and around, and speaking of all right, something else occurred to him. “You know what’s funny? I don’t feel those . . . those cravings anymore. Know what I mean?” He wasn’t going to say it out loud just in case one of the nurses came in, but he’d been this close to Fraser the whole time without staring at his neck or his wrist thinking about blood. In fact, the thought of hot human blood under his tongue made his queasy stomach worse. Maybe Frannie had been right. He’d killed the maker, and now he was free. He wasn’t going to mention that fact to Fraser though. Maybe he knew. The guy knew everything else.   
   
Fraser’s smile wasn’t so faint this time. “Well I’m glad some good came of this.” He reached out and laid his hand over Ray’s on the blankets.  
   
“Me too.” Ray curled his fingers around Fraser’s, relieved that he didn’t feel that over awareness of the pulse under his skin. He felt the other things though, the warmth and that huge rush of feeling in the middle of his chest. He looked up at Fraser and saw that he was still smiling. Ray smiled back, and neither one of them made any move to pull their hand away.   
   
**  
   
Ray got out of the hospital a few days later, and then came the physical therapy, the lifting restrictions, and the questions about the shooting. The hearing was a piece of cake with Fraser and Frannie’s testimony and the guys in the patrol cars down the street who’d heard the shots. The situation was clear cut in police terms – no one argued when the other guy shot first and hit you in the chest. Ray got off with a couple counseling sessions and some paid time off work, a bunch of blood tests at the hospital to make sure Victoria hadn’t given him anything and one big embarrassing apology to Dewey.  
   
Fraser was still on a guilt trip about the whole getting shot thing. He didn’t exactly give Ray sponge baths and backrubs, but he got dinner and helped around the apartment, which he’d probably been itching to clean all along anyway. He got Ray out walking too for thirty minutes a day like the therapist said and made sure he did his stupid exercises with the weights and all the other crap.  
   
Ray waited for the cravings to come back, that was his one big fear, but Fraser made him spaghetti with plenty of garlic and Frannie came over with lasagna wearing that crucifix necklace again and nothing happened to him – no coughing fits or flashes of pain through his head. He even watched Fraser cut his finger on a can of tomato sauce without the urge to suck away the blood. In fact, the memory of drinking actual human blood made him sick.   
   
Welsh came by with take-out, and Stella called a couple times, which was good because there wasn’t anyone else Ray could talk to about . . . certain things, and he got the courage to ask her if she’d ever thought he’d been into guys. That ended up being an interesting conversation. It was funny the stuff you could talk about when you weren’t with someone anymore.   
   
Fraser didn’t say another word about Victoria, and Ray didn’t push the subject. He figured Fraser was in some kind of mourning and had to know Ray was there for him if he ever wanted to talk about it again. They didn’t talk about those other certain things either, and that was all right for awhile – maybe they both needed the space after everything that had happened – but after a couple weeks it starting getting harder and harder sitting next to Fraser on the couch when all Ray wanted was to get closer, and he thought maybe Fraser was starting to look uncomfortable for the same reason. There came a point when something had to give, and Ray had to find out if the things they’d done had been out of something real or if Fraser just wanted to chalk it all up to heat of the moment stupidity and forget it ever happened.   
   
“Fraser . . .?” Ray came out with it one Friday game-day evening when Fraser had followed him into the kitchen to put his empty water glass in the sink. Fraser never left anything lying around on the coffee table, especially not after he’d cleaned it himself. “We ever gonna talk about that other thing?  
   
“What thing?”  
   
Ray’s courage wavered a little. Playing dumb was Fraser’s way of avoiding things, and it wasn’t exactly unheard of for someone to want to sweep the whole screwing a guy thing under the rug. But since Ray’d sprung the question out of nowhere he had to give Fraser a chance here.   
   
“The thing where you and I had sex.”  
   
Fraser’s face went bright red, and Ray was glad he didn’t add _twice,_ because Fraser looked like he’d been a little too blunt for him already. “Ah,” he said stiffly, glancing over his shoulder like he wanted to bolt in the other direction.   
   
He’d done enough bolting. It was time to find out whether this thing was going anywhere or not. “Come on, Fraser. I got a short fuse, you know that.”  
   
Fraser nodded, and then all of a sudden he was looking at him with that intent Fraser seriousness, and damn those blue eyes could paralyze someone if he wasn’t careful. “Did you want to talk about it?” he asked, like he was the one uncertain.  
   
“Do you?”  
   
“You shouldn’t answer a question with a question, Ray.”  
   
“You did it first.”  
   
And okay, this was stupid, drawing some imaginary line between them with neither one of them willing to budge an inch because both of them were scared. It made sense though. They’d just gotten out of a king-sized mess and over the past couple weeks had settled into something that resembled normal again and who would want to risk screwing that up? But Fraser finally decided to be the one to take the leap, because maybe neither of them had ever really been fine with normal.   
   
“I should have told you,” he sighed, hanging his head like this was just another thing he’d done wrong. “I should have realized how I felt for you instead of . . .”  
   
Ray immediately started shaking his head. This wasn’t a blame thing. Nobody had to take responsibility here. It was just . . . Fraser reached out for him, and Ray stopped him with a hand on his chest.   
   
“This isn’t some kind of rebound thing, is it?” Maybe since he couldn’t have Victoria he thought he’d settle for him, or maybe Fraser thought he owed Ray something for saving his life. Who could trust that a guy like Fraser would go after what he really wanted? He was a Mountie living in a cramped office, for god’s sake. He wasn’t exactly a go after his heart’s desire type of guy.   
   
Fraser was reading his mind again, and the look that came into his face was actually defiant, which was something you associated with Fraser about as well as tequila. He laid his hand over Ray’s on his chest and gently pushed it away so he could come closer.   
   
“It is possible for someone to care for you, Ray.” Fraser said it smugly, like he’d been saving that one for the right moment, turning things around. Normally, Ray hated having his own words thrown back at him, but he let Fraser slide this once because he was Fraser and because Ray knew he’d been seriously over the line when he’d said those things. And apparently he looked repentant enough because Fraser’s voice softened. “Of course, I’m not entirely certain whether it’s possible for others to do so half as much as I do.”  
.  
Ray smiled, and all of a sudden he felt like he was on the drugs back at the hospital again, just fucking high. He put his hands on Fraser’s shoulders and Fraser’s arms slipped around his back and they were kissing. Not angry kissing or freaky blood drinking kissing, kissing like normal people who’d finally given themselves permission to kiss each other like they wanted to. It felt good; Fraser’s mouth was surprisingly soft and he let out these faint little sounds, and Ray just couldn’t get enough of him.  
   
Nobody could say that Fraser didn’t care about him. He’d known what Victoria had made him and he never once flinched away in fear. Fraser was just . . . the best thing that could happen to a guy, and Ray hated Victoria for taking advantage of that, for trying to poison it. But it was time to stop thinking about Victoria, because she was dead and no one else was going to hurt Fraser while Ray was around  
   
He wound his arms around Fraser’s neck and walked them over to the sofa, breaking away from Fraser’s mouth just long enough to bark, “Park it.” Fraser sank down into the cushions and Ray climbed up and slid one knee across his lap, straddling him just in case Fraser thought about getting up and running away. The contact was good, better than good, because Fraser’s groin pressed right up again his and he was already half hard.   
   
Ray couldn’t help it; he shoved his tongue in Fraser’s mouth, and all of a sudden Fraser’s hands were moving down his back. They slid down over his ass and then Fraser’s fingertips were gliding along the bottom of his bare foot where Ray’s leg was folded under him. The touch tickled, and Ray squirmed, right up against Fraser’s lap, and that just drove both of them crazy.  
   
“Ray?” Fraser stopped kissing him all of a sudden. “Did you mean what you said? About turning me in if I committed a crime?”  
   
Ray couldn’t help the flash of annoyance. He was here for Fraser, but did he have to pick now to talk about Victoria? His dick was trying to tell him that maybe talking should wait for a little while. But maybe Fraser just wanted to slow down some.   
   
“I said a lot of things I didn’t mean, Fraser, and I’m sorry. But if you committed a crime, maybe I’d have to, who knows? Please don’t tell me that turns you on.” The last thing he wanted was for Fraser to move from one masochistic situation to another. If Fraser wanted to be punished so bad Ray could just bust out the handcuffs and do it the fun way. And where the hell had that thought come from?  
   
“Not that.” Fraser brought a hand up and stroked Ray’s cheek with his thumb, smiling at him slyly.  
   
Ray leaned in, and apparently slowing down wasn’t the issue, because Fraser’s mouth was more demanding when he kissed him this time. His hands moved under Ray’s t-shirt, and Ray let him gather it up over his head. He followed Fraser’s lead and started on the buttons of Fraser’s flannel shirt, pushing it away and peeling him out of his perfectly white wrinkle-free undershirt.   
   
Once there was bare skin between them, Fraser’s mouth just wasn’t enough anymore. Ray wanted to kiss everywhere else. Apparently Fraser had the same idea, because his mouth was suddenly behind Ray’s ear and Ray’s was on his shoulder, and god both of them were hard. It was definitely time to do something about that.  
   
Ray inched his way backwards until he sank down onto his knees on the floor, stretching up between Fraser’s legs and letting his mouth slide to Fraser’s throat. He ran his hands over Fraser’s shoulders and down over his biceps all the while, pressing him back against the couch. Fraser didn’t resist, his breath coming harder, which just made Ray all the more brave. His hands smoothed all the way down Fraser’s chest to the edge of his jeans. He popped the button and got Fraser’s zipper down and when he got him free of his boxers and into his palm Fraser was rock hard and throbbing like some kind of ticking bomb.  
   
For a minute Ray just stroked him, getting used to the feel of foreskin and the feel of another guy’s cock at all. He watched Fraser’s face too. His eyes were closed and lips were open and his head rested against the back up the couch, tilted upward with this _take me, take me_ look on his face that made Ray want to do just about anything to get him off.   
   
Apparently anything meant anything, because Ray surprised himself by lowering his head in Fraser’s lap. He didn’t know anything about sucking cock except being on the receiving end, but maybe when you wanted someone as much as he wanted Fraser, you improvised. He touched his tongue to the flushed head shining with wetness already, and Fraser grunted, his hands settling on Ray’s shoulders. It didn’t taste bad, it was just skin, so Ray went for more, running his tongue underneath him this time. Fraser twisted and his hands tightened, and Ray got that this uncircumcised thing made him about twice as sensitive, which could be twice as fun maybe.  
   
Ray got down to it for real though. He curled his hand around the base of Fraser’s cock and opened his mouth for him. Fraser was big at first, clumsy, and for a moment Ray was afraid he wouldn’t be able to breathe. But he went slow and he thought he got the hang of it; he pulled back and tightened his lips and Fraser thrust up to meet him. They went like that, and Ray tried not to wrap his lips too tight, because if Fraser was that sensitive who was to say that what felt good to a normal guy wouldn’t hurt him. And there he was, on his knees on his living room floor sucking cock, but it wasn’t like all the prison horror stories or some dirty gay bar glory hole. Fraser cradled the back of Ray’s head with one hand, rocking his hips and groaning, and the other hand went from stroking Ray’s face to trying to tear a chunk out of the sofa when the rhythm got more and more enthusiastic. He tried to push Ray away before he came, but Ray held on, because he knew from experience that Fraser would learn it felt better that way, if he didn’t already know.  
   
Ray’s jaw hurt by the time he let Fraser slide wet and limp from his mouth, and his throat burned where Fraser had practically scalded him. The taste was there, but it wasn’t bad. It was Fraser, besides, so Ray wiped his mouth when he slid back from between Fraser’s thighs and looked up at him.  
   
Fraser slumped pretty much bonelessly against the back of the couch, his chest heaving as he drew in heavy gulps of air. He held out his arms and Ray crawled back up to him, and just like that they were kissing again, that salty Fraser taste between them. Fraser seemed to have loosened up a bit too. His hand roamed down Ray’s bare chest and disappeared into his sweatpants, fingers curling around Ray’s cock. Ray just groaned against Fraser’s mouth with that hot wonderful touch, and maybe they should take this somewhere they could do this right. That’s what he wanted, to do this right, all the cards on the table, no running afterward.   
   
He pulled back just enough to get one word out. “Wanna . . .?” He glanced in the direction of the bedroom.  
   
Fraser’s face lit up, and they made it into the bedroom without taking their mouths from one another’s. Ray let his sweatpants and boxers fall at the foot of the bed and then he was lying flat on his back, pulling a naked Fraser on top of him who was still struggling to get his jeans untangled from one foot, kicking his shoe over the side of the mattress with the other.   
   
Naked Fraser was almost as good as Fraser inside him. He was all hard muscle and heat, and Ray pulled him up between his thighs, loving the weight of him pressing down on his disk and the way their mouths just melted into each other’s. He realized he could have naked Fraser and Fraser inside him all at once, and it freaked him out how quickly the idea popped into his head.  
   
“Fraser . . .?” Ray got his hands in all that dark hair and gently pushed Fraser’s head back so he could talk. “That thing we did last time . . . I want it. What does that mean?”  
   
Fraser smirked down at him, flushed-faced and bright-eyed. “It means you have nerve endings and a prostate, Ray,” he said, like the question was funny for some reason.  
   
Nerve endings. Ray snorted. He had nerve endings. He had nerve endings all over his body that tingled wherever Fraser pressed down on him. As for the other, how was Ray supposed to know whether that was normal or not? It wasn’t like getting penetrated was a part of everyday guy conversation.   
   
Fraser went back to kissing him, wet and thorough and sliding his tongue into Ray’s mouth. Ray just let him, running his hands over Fraser’s back, groping at all the skin he could reach, until Fraser took his mouth away and started kissing lower. He sucked at Ray’s neck and his shoulder and the ugly scar the bullet had left, and then he was swirling his tongue at Ray’s nipple until his back arched up and he shook a little. Ray kept his hands in Fraser’s hair all the while, trying to push his mouth this way and that and muttering. “There, right there, come on, come.”  
   
Fraser wasn’t having that. He stopped and took hold of Ray’s wrists, pinning them back against the mattress – not hard, just enough so Ray couldn’t move. “You know, Ray,” the smirk on Fraser’s face was more definite now, “part of the pleasure of intimacy is discovering for yourself what makes your partner tick, so to speak.”  
   
Ray stared up at him, dizzy and giddy and not making sense of what Fraser was saying. “So . . .?”  
   
Fraser shook his head, stroking a fingertip across the inside of Ray’s wrist so lightly that Ray shivered. “Relax,” he put it in plain English, and Ray got it. He’d been giving orders, trying to take control.  
   
He relaxed. He didn’t know whatever happened to communication and telling your partner what you liked, but maybe they did things differently in Canada. Maybe this was some kind of Mountie learn about your prey thing. He didn’t care. If Fraser wanted to do this his way Ray was all over that.  
   
Fraser let him go and licked a long hot path down Ray’ s stomach, and damn that tongue of his was magic. He got down to his cock and licked there too, just around the head, running his tongue over it so lightly Ray almost pulled something straining against how good it felt. “Fraser . . .” He closed his eyes and Fraser was swallowing him whole, getting him wet and enveloping him to the root until Ray was practically drowning in absolute bliss.  
   
Fraser didn’t stop there. He sucked him just enough for Ray’s heels to slide up the mattress, and to get him dangerously close to coming, and then Fraser took his mouth away, which pretty much hurt, Ray’s dick was throbbing so hard. Fraser licked his balls a little, which just added to the torture, before his dark head bent deeper between his thighs and . . .  
   
Ray about jumped up from the mattress. Fraser was licking him . . . there. A dozen things ran through Ray’s mind, _oh God, I can’t believe he’s doing this_ not the least of which. But it felt so fucking fantastically wonderful. He felt himself opening up and his whole body burned with how much he wanted Fraser in him, hot and hard right where his tongue was, moving in him. His thighs opened wider and he let out a sound like a man about to die.  
   
“Come on, Fraser, give it to me. I want it. I want it. I want it,” he moaned up at the ceiling, and Fraser must have wanted it just as bad, because just like that he was crawling up to him, reaching for the lubricant in the nightstand drawer.  
   
He hesitated, and Ray knew why. He just shook his head. “I got the tests. You’re clean, I’m clean. It’s okay.”   
   
Fraser nodded and smeared the stuff on himself and Ray, tons of it. Ray made to turn over when he was done, but Fraser put his hands on his shoulders and told him to stay right where he was. So Ray stayed flat on his back and Fraser crawled up between his thighs and Ray lifted his feet off the bed and folded his arms around him.  
   
He went slow, sliding into him about a millimeter at a time. It didn’t hurt, not this time. Ray may as well have been butter with the way Fraser glided right into him, no condoms, no barriers, just skin on slippery skin. He slid down onto his elbows and smothered Ray’s mouth with his, moving inside him ever so carefully once he pushed in all the way like he was savoring the feeling, and kissing Fraser and getting fucked by him at the same time was like _being_ the cake and eating it too.   
   
Ray couldn’t move very much lying on his back, but he didn’t care because Fraser was doing just fine on his own, hard and hot and stretching him, pressing right up against that spot like he knew _exactly_ where to find it. They were like this flowing circle of pleasure. Fraser pushed real deep into him and Ray arched his head back, pushing his tongue into Fraser’s mouth. But that only worked until Fraser starting thrusting harder, setting that spot inside him on fire, at which point Ray tucked his chin between Fraser’s shoulder and neck, groaned like crazy, and dug his fingers into Fraser’s back.  
   
“You gotta try this, Fraser.,” he panted in his ear, loving the way Fraser’s body dragged up and back over his cock, marble hard and pounding like mad trapped between them.  
   
“Oh I plan to,” Fraser exhaled sharply, a hot puff of breath stinging one side of Ray’s neck. He slid his hands under Ray’s back and pulled him up against his chest, their hot sweaty skin sliding together. Ray wrapped his arms tight and just let his head fall back and moaned while Fraser fucked him as deep and hard as he could.  
   
Ray came about five times as much as he ever had in his life, and it felt about a hundred times as good. The pleasure crashed all the through him right up to his skull and his thighs shook and he was crossing his toes with the force of it. He felt Fraser coming too, shuddering in his arms, letting out little broken sounds in Ray’s ear, and Ray thought the fingernails digging into his back would leave a good scratch or two.  
   
Fraser rolled off him right away like he suddenly remembered that Ray had a bullet wound on his chest that was still healing, and Ray rolled onto his side, stretching out his cramped legs and trying to catch his breath. It took a while, because he’d come so hard Ray felt like he’d just had a near death experience.    
   
He must have looked pretty worrisome, because Fraser pressed up against his back, slipping his arms around him and gathering him up real close against his chest. “Are you all right?” His hand rubbed gently over Ray’s chest and he laid a kiss on the back of his shoulder. All of that felt so good it was a wonder Ray didn’t melt right into him.  
   
 “Yeah. Just . . . “ Ray reached for the bottle of vicodin on the nightstand, the ones he only took at night now, and only some of the time. The wound burned a little, that was all, from breathing too hard.    
   
Fraser put his hand over Ray’s on the bottle. “I wish you wouldn’t take those.”  
   
“It hurts, Fraser.”  
   
“I know, it’s just . . .” He took his hand away and Ray got one pill and bit it in half, spitting the rest back into the bottle and shoving it back into the drawer.   
   
“What?” Ray rolled onto his back to look at him.  “Look what happened the last time I got myself in an altered state?”  
   
Fraser didn’t nod, but he did get this since-you-brought-it-up look on his face. “No more nightclubs, Ray,” he said, sternly. Ray glared at him, but the truth was he didn’t ever want to see another nightclub again. Fraser didn’t need to know that though.  
   
Ray gave him a little push onto his back so he could flop down and drape himself over Fraser’s chest. “Yeah, okay. But I expect sex every day, Fraser. I don’t care if you’re dead or lose your leg in a garbage truck.”    
   
“As you wish, Ray.” Fraser agreed in that tone you used with someone who didn’t know what the hell they were saying anymore. Maybe Ray didn’t; he just knew he was damn comfortable with his head on Fraser’s chest and those big strong Mountie arms wrapping around him. He loved how sturdy Fraser was and he . . .  
   
“Fraser?” Ray lifted his head a couple inches, just enough to look at him. Do this right, that had been the idea, all the cards on the table.    
   
“Hm?” Fraser’s eyelids fluttered, already sleepy.   
   
“I love you.”  
   
Fraser exhaled like that was something he’d never thought to hear. “And I you, Ray,” his arms tightened, “and I you.” Ray titled his head up and managed to touch their mouths together.   
   
He fell asleep to Fraser’s hand rubbing over his back, his heart beating in his ear, and thank God he could lay here like this without the sound driving him crazy with thoughts of blood and biting and all those other freaky things. Maybe him and Fraser were freaky enough by themselves.   
 


End file.
